So I’m new to this process. Trying to wrap my head around the meanings behind the terminology. I understand need vs merit, or at least I thought I did. But then I looked up one school’s stats (Vassar) and it says:
% of aid need met 100%
Average need-based aid $43,094
Average non-need-based aid $0
How does the school define “need” in this instance?
Is it the total cost of attendance, minus the expected financial contribution?
Or is it different for every school?
And, just looking at that stat, you’d think, wow, it costs ~$65k a year at Vassar, but they give you $43k so it would really cost $22k to go there, which (in my state) is cheaper than State U. Pretty good deal. Or is it?
When it says 100% of need met, I’m just confused as all get-out. What am I missing? Could it be all loans? That’s not aid, not in my book. That’s what I’m trying to avoid
Sorry for what I’m sure are questions that have been answered a zillion times. I have been reading a lot in the last couple of weeks but it’s still very unclear to me.
Each school defines “need” by calculating the financial information that parents provide on the financial aid forms, to determine how much it thinks the family can afford. Different schools don’t always end up w the same calculation result.
Schools that meet 100% of need will not just go by the FAFSA EFC, they will have their own financial aid forms and calculations, often considering home equity as well.
Some include loans, others meet need without loans. But usually there is a parent and student contribution.
To get an idea what the school might expect you to pay, try running net price calculators on college websites.
Yes. Cost of Attendance - EFC (as calculated by the school) = Need
It can be different for each school, because schools generally use their own formula to calculate need.
When a school says that meet 100% of demonstrated need, it means that for all admitted students an aid package will be offered that bridges the gap between EFC (as the school calculates it) and COA. Some of that gap may be bridged with loans. Typically, if loans are part of the aid package they will only be federal guaranteed student loans, which for most students should be manageable. Watch out for the schools that include Parent Plus loans in the aid package - as you point out, this is not really “aid.”
I just tried the Vassar net price calculator, the net price is about $5k higher than our FAFSA EFC. But we do not have high home equity or assets.
It states that they calculate a parent contribution based on income, assets, family size, number of children in college, and a student contribution that is made up of a standard summer earnings expectation ($1700 freshman year, $2450 returning students) plus a percentage of their assets.
It also says students have to file FAFSA and CSS profile.
Thanks so much for your replies - yes, I’ve seen the warnings on parent plus loans and plan to avoid them like the plague.
OK, so generally speaking, when a school says it’ll meet 100% need, it’ll be requiring the additional financial aid forms (CSS?) besides FAFSA? That will likely cut down our application number, as those are all extra costs, per school. That’s one way to weed them!
Generally, yes. If you think you qualify for need-based aid, though, disregarding schools that require CSS Profile would be short sighted. Yes, submitting Profile costs money, but the return on investment can be huge.
Note that the $43,094 figure is the AVERAGE award, which means some get more, some get less. It doesn’t mean you get $43K. Depending on what the school calculates as your need, you may very well pay much more than $22K to go there. Of course, you could also pay less.
It’s free to run the Net Price Calculator. Then decide if aid looks generous enough to invest in the CSS. Agree with BP. After you’ve run a few NPCs, you’ll see. Also remember to aim at schools your kid truly qualifies for, not dreams of schools he can’t reach. And look at merit awards.
OK, point taken on not throwing out the baby with the bath water, vis a vis CSS.
How does one run a few NPCs at this stage, though? Do you guys just keep the numbers in your head?
I haven’t set up a College Board account; should I do that and put all that personal info in, or do y’all run the numbers as Guest, or use fake names, or what?
ETA - my kid is in ninth grade.
There are fee waivers for CSS profile. I think up to 8 of them.
General rule of thumb for fee waiver eligibility is stated as family of 4 with income of $40k or less, assets of $30k or less, home equity of $100k or less.
Each college will have a NPC, or a link to one, on the school’s website. You won’t need to log in, set up an account or anything like that. If your student is in 9th grade, then you would just be guessing about stuff at this point. Your finances will likely change, the school’s COA will definitely change, and the financial aid policies and EFC formulas may change.
On the fin aid pages of college web sites. And rerun as time passes, your details change. 9th is early for kids claiming dream schools but not too early, IMO, to consider financial realities.
If the student would qualify for free/reduced lunch in junior year they can get SAT fee waivers from GC, saves on SAT fee (up to two tests). Then they can get application fee waivers, CSS fee waivers.
Right, yes, I know it’s early and everything will change – but I do want to get a sense of what pie in the sky is, at least at this point. That way I can guide the “I’m thinking about going to XYZZY U, because Buffy is going there” conversation. Thanks so much - the first Google hit was to the College Board NPC, but I will go to the college sites themselves.
First thing you might want to do is set up a separate e-mail account for all things college. You or your kid can set up a College Board account using that separate e-mail address (they’ll need an account eventually). Then you can run the CB NPCs and save your data so that you don’t have to re-enter your numbers each time unless something changes.
CSS Profile fee waivers:These will be awarded at time of filling out the profile. It is a “smart” form that uses the data you entered to determine if eligible. Not the same as the SAT fee waivers, and somewhat diff’t requirements since it’s possible to get one and not the other.
college board NPC: since your kid will sign up to take the SAT, go ahead and create an account. It is MUCH easier running the college board NPC’s than for the schools that have their own tools. Why? Because it saves all your data and you don’t have to re-enter it every time. Though not all schools use this NPC, many do and you can look at several very easily to get a feel for how diff’t they are.
Run NPCs: I was like you when starting the process. I said to myself “they give HOW MUCH AID?!?” And it’s true, some schools are very generous. But you have to know which ones are. Google “meets 100% of need” and “need aware” and “gapping” to read articles about all of this. Not all “meet 100% of need” schools are created equal. Some use loans, some don’t, some factor all of your home equity in as ‘available’ and some don’t. Some highly penalize funds in the student’s name, some not so much (but the time is now for you to look at where your child’s assets are). Run NPCs for a variety of schools to know which schools are generous and which ones aren’t.
9th grade isn’t too early: Belk is right that you won’t know ‘exactly’, but you’ll get a good ball-park of what the situation is for each school. You’ll know which schools to forget about and which ones to zero in on. NPCs use 1-3 year old data anyway, so they’re never very accurate.
need-based and non-need based: some schools like Vassar don’t give non-need aid (merit aid) because everyone would deserve it. Schools that offer non-need based aid are trying to attract students that may be full-pay at highly selective schools such as the ivies. Tulane, Miami and USC are good examples of schools like this that give 20-40% of the students merit aid - to atract them away from other schools.
You asked how to keep track of the results of the NPCs. We printed the results because it was too hard to remember. Also, we used a spreadsheet to track cost of attendance, NPC estimates, possible merit aid and the impact, loans, and final cost to us.
As I think others have said, the colleges that give the best aid use the CSS profile, too. So you can gain a LOT if your kid gets into a profile school that “meets need” (by their own definition, of course).
You mention the non-need based line of $0 in your first post. That means the school does not give merit based aid. But at many school, school offered merit won’t matter for you, because they would just knock down your need based aid by the merit amount.
