What are some good schools with generous merit aid?

Hi, just kind of stuck in a situation where my EFC is almost 40,000, and I don’t want to plummet into 200k in student debt, so I was wondering if there are any top institutions that also offer substantial merit scholarships to OOS students? Would an Ivy league still make me pay that 40,000 if I get accepted?
If it helps to know for suggesting merit scholarships, I have a perfect GPA and a 1580 SAT.
I also want to major in computer science, so good CS schools.

University of Alabama gives guaranteed merit aid for your stats. @mom2collegekids what is that this year?

There are lots of schools where you might get merit aid. Vanderbilt gives merit aid. Tulane does. What about your state flagship?

Are you by any chance a NM finalist? That opened some doors.

And to answer your question…yes, the Ivies WILL expect you to pay your family contribution. All but Princeton also use the Profile in addition to the FAFSA. Princeton uses its own form. You may find that these schools expect a higher family contribution than the FAFSA would indicate.

Have you run the Net Price Calculators for these schools?

If your parents are self employed or own real estate in addition to your primary residence…the NPC might not be accurate. Is that the case?

How much can they pay annually? Ask them.

You do NOT have to take $50,000 a year in loans. Find a less costly college.

Are you also a NMSF? What was your PSAT? What state are you in?

Yes, with your currently listed stats, Alabama would give you $26k per year plus another $2500 per year for CS.

Your remaining costs would be very low.

How much will your parents pay each year?

As for what Ivies or similar would make you pay, we have no idea. We don’t know if your parents have a lot of home equity or if they take business deductions or if they have a lot of assets.

Your resume is very average, so your chances for the elite schools are weak.

Did your parents fill out FAFSA or did you?

What is the household income? Do your parents take any business deductions? Your “EFC” to a top school could even be higher if CSS Profile reveals assets/deductions that FAFSA doesn’t cover.

Are you retesting? If you were to get a perfect ACT/SAT you’d get more money/benefits

Presidential

A student with a 32-36 ACT or 1420-1600 SAT score and at least a 3.5 GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive $104,000 over four years ($26,000 per year). Students graduating with remaining scholarship semester(s) may use these monies toward graduate school and/or law school study at UA.

Presidential Elite

A student with a 4.0 GPA and a 36 ACT or 1600 SAT will be selected as a Presidential Elite Scholar and will receive:

Value of tuition for up to four years for degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate or law studies
One year of on-campus housing at regular room rate
$1,000 per year stipend for four years
$2,000 one-time allowance for use in summer research or international study (after completing one year of study at UA)
$2,000 book scholarship ($500 per year for four years)

Also consider Iowa, Pitt, and U. of Cincinnati. With your stats, you should get a good amount of merit $. Ivies don’t give merit at all so run the net price calculators to calculate your need base aid.

Sadly, that 40K number seems to show up a lot these days and it already includes merit aid. The full price can be more like $70k after you include room and board and fees and expenses. I guess they can keep charging as long as people keep paying. You can join those paying this or not, up to you. Just keep in mind there are many lower cost options.

Does that mean that your parents won’t pay anything?

Anyway, YOU can’t borrow $200k. You would need willing and qualified co-signers, and most parents won’t do that.

Fed student loans for freshman are $5,500…so won’t cover much at all.

Also, totally not necessary to borrow large amounts and actually a bad idea to borrow that much for undergrad.

I second the University of Alabama. Also, check out TCU. Currently you qualify for the Presidential scholarship, which covers full tuition. Baylor offers a similar scholarship.

Try the net price calculators at Rice and Notre Dame.
https://financialaid.rice.edu/calculate-my-cost
https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/nd

I got a lot of $$ offer at Kent State - I’m an out of state student and was surprised they offered me almost half price.

Hi. I’m in cs, and I’m a senior, and I’ve signed with a top company. So hopefully you won’t ignore me when I tell you something you may not want to hear…

…which is that you may have to go to a school that you, personally, don’t consider “good” (I’m just guessing you might feel this way since many HS seniors do – but maybe I’m wrong).

Here’s the objective truth about what you need for cs (minus tippy top quantitative WS firms):

  • Accredited school
  • Accredited program

That’s literally it for undergrad cs. Engineering is the LEAST prestige-dependent of all fields (see The Economist piece on this), and CS is the LEAST prestige-dependent field within that subset.

Are there benefits to attending tippy top schools? Idk, dude, maybe. But let me tell you: my friends at Harvard deal with all the same problems that I deal with. My friends at MIT are just as pissed at their administrators as students at my school are. We all eat mediocre dorm food and complain about nasty professors.

The problems really are kinda the same across the board, and honestly? The education is pretty on-par too if I say so myself (and I do). Calculus is calculus.

I had the stats in high school to pull major admissions offers: I chose to go somewhere I had a full ride. We’re completely unranked: I still landed one of the most competitive, well-paid internships every single year, and signed with a tippy top tech company. My fellow interns were from Harvard, UMich, et al… and also no-name rural schools and unranked institutions like mine. Nobody cares as long as you can code.

Sure, there is a minor benefit to having a dedicated school recruiter: but not having one is not something you can’t overcome by shooting a recruiter a message on LinkedIn (takes five minutes). The people who rely on prestige for “access” to companies are, in my opinion, ridiculous. You can do that yourself with barely any effort (tippy top quant firms not included, again).

I’ve saved a TON of money by making this life choice. I think it might actually be the most powerful, best choice I ever made in my entire life, and I’m very grateful that 17 y/o me was mature enough to turn down the siren song of the “more prestigious” path and take the affordable one.

I haven’t suffered at all. I’ve actually come out quite a bit financially ahead than most of my peers at more prestigious schools (AND those kids have been frequently getting turned down at my employer, which has been a pretty awkward experience to go through… but it happens).

A quote from a friend at Harvard who messaged me last week: “I thought the name would mean more.”

It doesn’t.

So make the best choice for you. Go to an affordable school, like a Bama (which is fantastic for cs). Save yourself the burden of loans, save that internship money, save that campus job money. You’ll come out really, really grateful that you can start out your adult life with the apartment you want, the nice wedding you want, the traveling you want…

I’m very grateful to my former self.

Just some advice.

^ Well said, Courtney. My DD found the same to be true in engineering.

And it’s sad to see folks going into debt for these schools. It’s one thing if the Family qualifies for awesome aid or the family is so affluent that they’ll never miss the money, but if big debt was taken on or parents retirement will be underfunded, then it’s a big mistake.

@CourtneyThurston I just want to stand up and cheer after reading your post! Mind if I share it with our high school GCs?

x

edit: I was 1 question away from being a NMF, I scored a 1450/1520 on the PSAT. I was commended, but no marbles. Also, I live in Arizona, so our state flagship is basically Arizona State which isn’t much, that’s why I’m looking out of state. My parents have saved ~40k for all of my college, so that could nicely shave off 10k/y, but when paying upwards of 40k/y, it wouldn’t do as much as I had hoped. Thank you all for your comments, they were very helpful. @thumper1 @mom2collegekids @CourtneyThurston

@3scoutsmom Feel free

If I were you, I’d be going to Barrett at ASU.

So…please ask your parents…are they saying that the only family contribution will be the $10k per year? Are they saying that they won’t contribute ANYTHING out of current income??

Something related that you may want to consider (that I forgot to include in my original post) – and I think it’s an argument to seriously look at Barrett or the honors college at Bama – is this:

I buy much more into the argument that top schools are good for grad school. They are, because what top schools have are great faculty, and you’re actually working WITH faculty in grad school. In undergrad, at most, you’re working FOR them.

Like, sure, MIT has Noam Chomsky. But I can assure you, none of my undergrad friends – not even the absolute most talented ones, the ones with long Wikipedia articles – are kickin’ it with Noam.

At most, they’ve had an intro class or a UROP with a name-brand professor, and it turns into a cool cocktail party story (which is all fine and great. Good cocktail party stories can be valuable.)

For undergrad bang-for-your-buck, you need to really look at resources that schools offer. And, yes: top schools have the quantity and the shine. What they ALSO have is a student body that is 100% qualified to use those resources – and probably want to.

Not-top schools may have less shiny resources, but your chances of being able to actually compete for and access those resources is SO MUCH higher.

Here’s my concrete go-to example: the Goldwater Scholarship.

It’s a fairly prestigious research scholarship for college sophomores and juniors where schools have to nominate students (up to four total). My dream school in high school was indeed MIT. MIT nominated four students this year; of those four, only two won (though I should mention that the other two were honorable mentions, and HMs do receive recognition).

I also won… with a 3.4-something GPA.

Here’s the fact: despite having an objectively better application than two of those students from MIT, there is absolutely no chance in hell that MIT would’ve even nominated me if I had gone there (due to the low GPA alone). I wouldn’t have even had a chance at that award despite being–and proving–that I was capable of winning it.

At my school, it was never even a question that I’d be nominated. I didn’t even have to ask. I was approached–years before the nomination window, and then in increasing frequency leading up to the deadline–because it is remarkably easier to stand out at a less tippy top school.

Similar: where my friends at Harvard are never quite sure if they’re going to get WiCS sponsorship to go to conferences they want (because every woman in cs at Harvard is qualified and wants to go), I barely even have to ask for funding. My friends pile four or more into a room, often sharing beds; meanwhile, my conversation goes something like this:

“Can I use X grant to go to four conferences?” “Sure, because no one else is going to use it.”

You might be thinking 'Well, I don’t want to be the only person at my school who’s bright and ambitious."

But this is flawed thinking, too. Basically every person in my honors program class was the valedictorian of their high school. It’s been very easy to find qualified, bright, motivated students in the research labs; in the tutoring labs; etc at my school. They exist: they just aren’t 100% of the student body. And that BENEFITS you.

You’ll find, too, that you won’t make friends based on the qualities you think you might. Sure, it’s kinda novel and cool to be surrounded by people who have equally high test scores or class rank, but ultimately no one makes friends on this basis. You make friends based on personality matches, not achievements, and you’ll find this out very quickly during your first college midterms cycle.

/endRant

No, the 40k is the only thing they will contribute @mom2collegekids.