<p>I don’t entirely understand the financial aid process, but here’s a question–</p>
<p>when a school makes its offer (and assuming your child is going to attend that school) do you have to accept the offer in its entirety? For example, would it be possible to accept the grant portion of the offer, but forgo any loans or work/study (realizing that you have to make up that component on your own somehow)? Or is it a package that is all or nothing?</p>
<p>Just another word of reassurance about the work study component of the package. Like RRunner’s D, our S is also an athlete at an Ivy and has a small job with flexible hours - his position allows a significant amount of studying while on the job. It’s doable for him - grades haven’t suffered in a demanding major. Not a lot of down time, but he’s loving life!</p>
<p>mino, you can pick and choose. And you can almost always say “yes” to the pieces like work/study, and then if it doesn’t work out, change your mind. You need to confirm this with the finaid office before assuming this is the case, however. You can shop for your own loans, if you don’t like what’s being offered.</p>
<p>Hi All
Well - looking forward to talking with said FinAid office.</p>
<p>Isn’t it surprising that they’d add back the employer’s contribution to a pension…
meaning do they add back everyone’s employers’ contribution to the retirement - even though its on the employers sde- not the employees contribution/macthing…
clear as mud?</p>
<p>I was expaining this to our student today–about the accounts and the campus job. </p>
<p>Yes, Riverrunner, it will feel like quite a pound or two of flesh.</p>
<p>fogfog - I just read this for the first time, and I too am shocked and amazed by your Princeton pre-read. I hope it was a mistake that gets fixed quickly and easily and I can assure you, from our experience, P has been wonderful and smooth with everything, from admissions through registration, dealing with DS’s injury (not athletic related. They offered to provide him a golf cart to get between classes while he recuperated), in every way, P has been a dream experience.</p>
<p>Regarding financial aid, we thought we’d be a full pay family so didn’t do a pre-read, and didn’t apply for aid at all for freshman year. We’ve been hit hard by the economy, our income is way down, so I decided to apply for aid second year. As I said, our income is down, but we still have significant business assets and a healthy net worth, so I wasn’t optimistic about our aid prospects. We were happily surprised with the outcome. A nice grant, and a nice parent loan for the balance.
Though they say they want their students to graduate free, they do offer a liberal parent loan option. We were easily approved for the max ($40k/yr) for his 3 remaining years on a 14 year term at an unbelievable rate, variable, based on LIBOR, currently 1.55%.</p>
<p>With the grant we didn’t need to borrow the full $40k, but even if we get no grants in future years, it’s good to know we have the loan as a cushion.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>^sherpa, I think the OP will clarify, but she said the finaid offer was double what the Princeton calculator came up with. She then says the school involved is an HYP. I’m pretty sure it’s not P that delivered the bad news. Good information about P; however, it may just rub salt in the OP’s wound…</p>
<p>^I just re-read fog’s post and see you’re right; the unnamed school (H, Y, or P) wanted double what the P calculator indicated. Yes, probably not P, but I would assume H and Y would come in about the same. In any event, what a disappointment.</p>
<p>Also, to clarify my post, for the P parent loan, the borrower has two options, either a variable LIBOR rate adjustable every six months (currently 1.55%) or a fixed rate of 5.9%.</p>
<p>To further clarify my post, my statement that we have a “healthy net worth” may be misleading. We are not super wealthy by any measure, but we have assets that are probably untypically high relative to our income. The generous schools talk about formulas (10% of income up to $160,000, for example) assuming typical assets, and a lot of people surely wonder what the “typical assets” disclaimer means. I just wanted to point out that in our case, at least, P did not force us to liguidate assets in a bad market to pay tuition. We are very happy with the combination of the financial aid grant and the super affordable loan they offered us.</p>
<p>fogfog - sorry for my misinterpretation of your post, best wishes to you and your athlete through the rest of the process, and I certainly hope the pre-read you received was in error and will be corrected.</p>
<p>Just to pipe in here</p>
<p>Be forwarned…the FinAid at these schools is actually an “average” of 10% of income up to a certain point…and after that all bets are off…</p>
<p>We did not get the 10% deal…That was the shocker because we thought we’d be in the 10% pool…due to those pretty charts and affordability text…</p>
<p>and they calculate your income differently–adding back any pensions and IRA stuff back in…also your deductions/allowances are not dollar for dollar…</p>
<p>I asked 10 ways to Sunday about that 10% thing and the lovely chart and all that and asked why if we were at xyz then why not 10%…
and was told that’s the “average”, some people pay 0, some pay 40%+ etc…</p>
<p>The pretty charts and text do not say anything about “average”, the text/charts illustrate about levels of income and that 0-10% thing…</p>
<p>and every institution does it differently AND it all depends on the “professional judgement” of the fin aid rep handling your case…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’d just point out that “double” is meaningless without knowing the actual numbers (or at least ballpark range). I mean, “double” of $3500 is not the same as “double” of $22,000.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that FogFog needs to disclose personal info - just that others keep in mind that individual circumstances vary.</p>
<p>It’s all good folks!</p>
<p>Cmon fogfog…what happened? You can’t make that statement with an exclamation and no explanation! What gives?</p>
<p>I am taking some Good advice, wink wink…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>:cool:</p>
<p>hahahahahhahahhahahahhahha</p>