Look at your parent w2 forms…and fill in each of their incomes.
Take the income figure from the tax return and divide it into the amount that parent 1 earned and the amount that parent 2 earned. Look at the W-2 and/or 1099 forms.
Ahhh, got it. Thank you! Because of our current family situation it gave me an estimated 5,920$ pell grant but thatm ight change if I decide to get a job for senior year
@bbixl145 So it looks like you are a Mass student going for pre-med? Definitely go to UMass Amherst and get the best grades possible in a major that is not biology. I know several doctors who started at UMass.
@bbixl145 O’k so you are Pell. You are going to need to apply to full merit choices to have a chance at affordability. UMass schools might be too expensive. Your GPA is 3.64 and a 34 ACT and SAT is a 1540. You need to include a financial safety.
https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships
You would get a full tuition scholarship. With the almost full Pell and a Stafford, you should only need another 1 or 2k a year. Can you work and save 1k this summer?
.Do your parents own a business? How much does each parent earn? Do they own their home? If so, do they have equity?
This won’t happen. You’re a student with limited means and limited earning power. You won’t be able to help pay for college and save up for med school. Med school costs 50k to 90k per year. There’s no way that you’re going to be able to save anything close to 200k to 400k for med school. You’d be taking out loans like most med students do.
Look for colleges that will award you full aid or huge merit scholarships. However, first we need to know if your family has circumstances that would preclude much aid.
@gearmom My parents want me to stay in the Northeast and personally I do too, although I have no problem going to the south. I was looking at some schools in Georgia, Tennessee, etc. but my parents was strictly New England and Mid Atlantic schools
@bbixl145 Then pick your cheapest good quality NJ college if you are in state for your safety. You may need to commute or start with a CC if you do not get enough need/merit aid. You could choose a few lottery options in NE. Are you an URM?
No, unfortunately, I am asian. I do have safties like Rutgers, RCNJ, etc. But I am questioning my matches such as NEU and BU in terms of my acceptance and money. Money not being the bigger issue because the cost would be 4000-6000 and my parents and I talked about ways we can pay last night. So I am more worried about the admissions now
Have you run the Net Price Calculator for those schools? Is that where the $4-6K range came from?
I did last night @Erin’sDad
NEU and BU as matches?
Maybe BU…but I wouldn’t count on NEU as a match.
And remember…please remember…BU does NOT guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students.
NEU does guarantee to meet full need…but admissions have become quite competitive.
Being Asian could be considered a URM for some schools in the mid-west. There are some fine schools there that meet full need and are need blind for admissions.
To answer your Mom’s question about medical insurance: Yes, you can be a legal dependent but still get medical insurance as an individual. Colleges offer reasonably priced medical insurance for students. I dropped my son from my insurance when he started college because his school’s plan was less expensive and offered excellent coverage.
Staying on the parents’ medical insurance doesn’t require the child to be a dependent for tax purposes. It depends on the type of insurance the parents have (group insurance allows it, some individual policies allow it). Under ACA, the child can be married, not a student, have her own job that provides insurance, and STILL be on the parents’ insurance until she is 26. If the parents have other children they are covering, it might not cost the parents anything extra to keep the 18-26 year old on the policy.
The better question might be what would the parents’ insurance cover while the student is at college - providers in the area, coverage in another state?
I just want to thank all of you guys, my parents and I truly appreciate all the information you provided for us. A few weeks back I was clue less about financing and the basic adulthood in college and my parents wouldn’t even talk about college to me (and I was scared and hurt because I knew they didn’t know what they were doing and neither did I, unlike my friends and their families). Thank you so much! My parents are being more involved in this whole process now (at least for the last two-three days- more than they have in the last year).