<p>I'm almost positive that we will qualify for a Pell grant when it's time for my 2013 son to actually start applying to colleges. I've been reading so many horror stories about "need" being calculated differently by colleges and FASFA. So I've been browsing the financial aid statistics for different schools to see how much of the need they meet and how many students had their full need met. And the statistics are pretty disheartening to say the least.
For instance I saw a posting about Emerson College that I think had the statistic that 36% of students who had need, had their full need met. That's not a promising number. But I'm curious about how does being pell eligible play out when getting NEED based aid. Aside from pell eligibility meaning that you have a greater calculated need than those who are not, is it more likely that pell eligible students will have closer to 100% need met than non pell eligible students who are also still found to have need? Or is it pretty much just a grant, having no effect on how strong an award package is.
And if it varies from school to school as I'm guessing, how would I comb the data to find schools (outside of the highly selective 100% need schools) to find the better prospects?</p>
<p>No…qualifying for Pell does not mean that schools will meet your need. </p>
<p>A Pell grant is up to about $5550 per year (depending on EFC). For some schools, alll they can give is a Pell grant, loans, and work study. Most schools don’t have much money to give, so some can only give the little bit of federal aid.</p>
<p>If your child needs a lot of aid, then you’ll have to carefully select your schools.</p>
<p>1) Does your state give aid to low income students? (not all states give aid)</p>
<p>2) Does your child have high enough stats to get admitted into the limited number of schools that have a lot of aid to give?</p>
<p>3) Does your child have the stats to get big merit scholarships for stats?</p>
<p>4) Does your child have a non-custodial parent whose income will get considered by some schools?</p>
<p>You’re correct in assuming that it varies by school…in general, while many kids with low EFC’s will get a higher dollar amount of aid, they may not have 100% of need met simply because their need is so great. If PA public schools are reasonably priced and your state aid is good, you may find that a Stafford/Perkins loan (in addition to the federal/state awards) will come close to meeting full need. I would approach it from that side - estimate what you think your child would be eligible for if they were attending next year and then find at least a few financial safeties around that price range. If you anticipate that your student will have good grades, rank, and test scores and can add guaranteed merit aid to the mix, you may be able to find quite a few.</p>
<p>BTW…looking at the percentages of aid doesn’t tell you a whole lot unless a school meets 100% of need. </p>
<p>Some schools practice “preferential packaging” which means that high stats kids get better aid packages.</p>
<p>Also, some kids only have small need (llike $5,000) which can easily be met with a student loan. </p>
<p>In your case, you need a careful strategy of finding affordable schools to apply to.</p>
<p>have you figured out your EFC…here’s a quick estimate that will give you a rough amount.
[FinAid</a> | Calculators | QuickEFC](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Quick EFC - Finaid)</p>
<p>PA has some good state grants that your son may be eligible for. Keep these on your radar as you estimate costs too.</p>
<p>Estimated grant awards:
[PHEAA</a> - Estimated State Grant Awards](<a href=“http://www.pheaa.org/stategrants/estimated_awards.shtml]PHEAA”>http://www.pheaa.org/stategrants/estimated_awards.shtml)</p>
<p>Eligibilty:
[PHEAA</a> - Eligibility Requirements for PA State Grant Program](<a href=“http://www.pheaa.org/stategrants/grant_eligibility.shtml]PHEAA”>http://www.pheaa.org/stategrants/grant_eligibility.shtml)</p>
<p>Good luck. PA has some very good in state schools that might be pretty affordable with PEll, PHEA and loans.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Are the PA grants for use instate only? </p>
<p>I don’t know how the state of PA is with grants, but I’ve read enough Penn State posts where people have stated that they haven’t gotten enough aid to attend PSU because PSU is a pricey for a public and the aid doesn’t go that far. Maybe if income is low enough, then it can work out.</p>
<p>For us the Pell grant eligibility made a big difference this year. At first D’s school said she was not Pell eligible, but we knew she was and informed them. That then triggered not only the Pell aid but an additional $7,000 from the university…which made the difference between going and not going to her school.</p>
<p>Out of state use of the PA grant is limited I think to a few hundred dollars. I think like $800 or something like that. So yeah, they are pretty much in-state only grants.
PA has the most expensive state schools in the country iirc. The more affordable ones have dismal graduation rates.
At this point, I’m not anticipating he will be competitive for merit aid. He is a solid 3.1 student…lol and his PSAT this year were mid 500’s across the board. Sure, I’m praying that he gets it together this year for a strong junior year but I have to plan as if he won’t.
Where the heck do the average poor kids go to school??? I’m really starting to look more and more at the community college route. But then what? It seems like transfer aid is even harder to come by.</p>
<p>CC and guaranteed transfer to public schools are often used routes in my neck of the woods. Some kids who wouldn’t have been eligible for merit aid as freshmen can get it with good CC grades, especially if they are Phi Theta Kappa members (not all CC’s have chapters though). Ironically, we also have a fair number of PA kids at our SUNY’s since OOS costs are pretty low, it’s close to home, and many of the SUNYs offer better scholarships (and/or lower criteria) to OOS kids…that may be something you should explore! IIRC, SUNY Cortland (right off I-81) is particularly good about that. I posted other SUNY award info last year on the Guaranteed Merit Aid thread here…wherever that’s gone to!</p>
<p>Using the link for efc estimate, my efc was about $3200. There is a noncustodial parent but we’ve been divorced since 1998. Is it likely that his income will be considered? We probably have about the same income.</p>
<p>Transfer aid is harder to come by, but that relates primarily to merit-based aid. That is to say, they use merit aid to entice higher-stat freshmen to attend a certain school. Since you won’t likely be in that situation anyway, doing a couple years at a community college and then transferring can save buckets of money. Just make you son is talking to an advisor to help him maximize transferable credits and getting his distribution requirements completed while at the cc.</p>
<p>Yes, the non-custodial income will be used in awarding institutional aid at any school that requires the CSS profile/Non-custodial profile.</p>
<p>Non custodial income and assets will not affect Pell grant eligiblity</p>