<p>We are starting to receive D1's financial aid packages. She has been awarded merit scholarships to most of her accepted schools. Some also offer small grants for specific things -- area of intended study, or for having attended a Catholic high school. I am starting to suspect that the amounts of these "need-blind" awards are skewed toward our EFC.</p>
<p>Some packages include loans, but we may cross those schools off of our list. We feel we cannot borrow due to some upcoming family expenses that don't show on our tax returns -- the care of aging parents, one of whom just had bypass surgery, then a stroke. The estimates for their care are daunting.</p>
<p>We do not qualify for need-based grants. </p>
<p>My question: Has anyone been able to negotiate with a university for more merit aid by demonstrating upcoming expenses that make borrowing unwise? We feel we can pay out of pocket up to a certain amount -- but no more. That amount is less than we are now paying for D1's high school tuition.</p>
<p>Thanks for any advice or encouragement. We thought we had a good handle on college expenses -- but sometimes life sneaks up on you, yes?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wish I could be encouraging…but merit aid is awarded based on your child’s academic merit and the strength of her application, not on your financial need or expenses. The expenses you outlined above are very worthy ones…and certainly caring for elderly parents is important, and I agree if you have to do this, then you have to do this. BUT most colleges view this as a choice. </p>
<p>To get increased MERIT aid, you would want to demonstrate that your daughter was eligible for a higher award based on her academic merit. These awards, however, are given at the discretion of the schools.</p>
<p>Most colleges expect families to pay their family contribution as the colleges compute it to be.</p>
<p>There is no harm, however, in asking if there is the possibility of more aid for your daughter. But don’t be too surprised if the schools do not have additional money to award her.</p>
<p>I hope there was a financial safety that she likes on her application list, just in case the finances do not work out.</p>
<p>Very few colleges and universities will meet the EFC. Most will leave a gap between the EFC and their aid. Since you know now what you really can afford, you need to go back to that list of colleges, and find the ones your daughter can attend based on:
What you can pay.
What she can pay from savings, and earnings.
What she can borrow in Stafford Loans.
Any guaranteed aid that comes from your state (TAP, HOPE, Blue & Gold, Bright Futures, etc.)
Any guaranteed merit-based aid from the college or university itself.</p>
<p>If your daughter doesn’t have a single institution on her list that fits in that budget, she can take a look around to see if there are any that are still accepting applications - many public institutions will accept right through the summer. Or, she may want to take a gap year and re-work her list. Not the option that she wants to consider I’m sure, but given the surprise health issues in the family, maybe a year at home helping out wouldn’t be such a bad thing.</p>
<p>Agree with the above. It is fortunate that you know ahead of time that you have to divert funds from paying for college to caring for parents before your D enrolled in a college that you would not have been able to afford. Figure out your budget then look for options that fit the budget and if the original list isn’t doable the gap year idea presented above preserves your D’s status as a rising college freshman and she can rethink an affordable list.</p>
<p>" I am starting to suspect that the amounts of these “need-blind” awards are skewed toward our EFC.</p>
<p>We do not qualify for need-based grants. </p>
<p>My question: Has anyone been able to negotiate with a university for more merit aid by demonstrating upcoming expenses that make borrowing unwise? We feel we can pay out of pocket up to a certain amount – but no more. That amount is less than we are now paying for D1’s high school tuition."</p>
<p>The answer is…it depends.</p>
<p>What makes you think that the merit award was somehow limited based on your EFC? Do you know for sure that this school gives larger awards for the same stats to other kids?</p>
<p>Are your D’s stats VERY high for these schools? Are her test scores within the top few % of the school? What schools are these? What are her test scores?</p>
<p>If your D’s scores are very high, and you’re certain that others get more money for the same stats, then you could politely ask for a review.
“. We feel we cannot borrow due to some upcoming family expenses that don’t show on our tax returns – the care of aging parents, one of whom just had bypass surgery, then a stroke. The estimates for their care are daunting.”</p>
<p>I don’t think the above is going to matter much. Caring for extended family is considered a choice. Schools expect families to put a money priority towards their kids first. I know that may sound harsh, but if they started considering extended families’, nearly everyone could point to a needy family member. Besides, you’re wanting more merit, and that is “academic based” not need based.</p>
<p>*Allegheny is one of D1’s top choices, and she received the Trustee’s Scholarship too. As the FA packages from her colleges come in, they are looking very similar. Every one provides help up to our EFC, even though we are talking about “need-blind” scholarships, not FA. </p>
<p>I ask you, how need-blind can they be, if every scholarship just happens to fall short of our EFC? ;-)*</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean by: falls short of your EFC. Do you mean that if your EFC is $30k and the school costs $50k, then the scholarship might be $15k which still leaves you with $35k? </p>
<p>If so, that’s NOT unusual. Many schools’ merit scholarships aren’t really that big.</p>
<p>Is one of the school’s Allegheny?</p>
<p>If so, are your D’s SAT (M+CR) well above 1400?</p>
<p>You might be able to prove that with past expenses, but never with future ones. And really, only the wealthy, 100% need met schools budge much.</p>
<p>We feel we can pay out of pocket up to a certain amount – but no more. That amount is less than we are now paying for D1’s high school tuition.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much your D’s tuition is, but since it’s a Catholic school, I’m going to guess that it’s about $11k-16k per year. </p>
<p>If you can afford to pay LESS than that for your child’s college tuition, did your D apply to ANY financial safety schools where you know for sure that you’ll be paying what you can afford?</p>
<p>OP, would these additional expenses come up during the next 3-4 years, while your D is in college? You might want to do some discreet checking to see if any of the schools would change your EFC and possibly award you need-based aid due to those expenses. They might not give you the money for the coming year, but it might be possible for future years. Stilll a big “if”, especially if these aren’t schools that guarantee to meet need (as they assess it). </p>
<p>Also, forgive me if you’ve already crunched the numbers backwards and forwards and evaluated the situation thoroughly…but I’d also suggest taking a good hard look at the financials for eldercare. Only you can know your own situation, but please make sure that you’re not paying for care that would be covered by Medicaid if the parents in question have used up their own financial resources.</p>
<p>Truthfully…if you cannot afford to pay your EFC…you need to look for colleges that cost less than that.</p>
<p>as a point of clarification - it is my understanding that the term “need-blind” referred to admission. Meaning that the admission decision was independent of your financial need. Even a need-blind school might then consider your actual need when allocating merit or other monetary awards.</p>
<p>Could be wrong, but thought the only time eldercare expenses count is when an elder qualifies as your dependent-? And possibly lives with you?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Looking forward is correct; need blind is used in the admissions process. What need blind means is that whether you have significant financial need, or full pay or any where in between will not affect you in the admissions process.</p>
<p>On the financial aid side, what you are looking for are schools that meet 100% demonstrated need. </p>
<p>Demonstrated need = Cost of attendance - EFC (income and assets of parents + income/assets of the student).</p>
<p>Since you stated that you do not qualify for need based financial aid, any merit money your daughter receives will “discount” the cost of attendance.</p>
<p>You will have to look to see what the criteria the school meets for granting merit money. Did she have the qualifications to get their top award? If she has already received their top scholarship, it is unlikely that they are going to give more $$</p>
<p>For example: if a student needs and SAT score of 1400 + 3.75 gpa to get 25k<br>
and 1450 plus ranked #1 OR 2 to get a full tuition scholarship and your daughter has a 1450 and is ranked number 10, the school most likely is not going to raise the scholarship from 25k to full tuition.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I think that the OP may be referring to the fact that the school’s website says that merit awards are given WITHOUT consideration of need. And, she feels that that isn’t really true.</p>
<p>I think it is true, but that either the student’s stats aren’t high enough for the merit that they expected OR the school just doesn’t award that much.</p>
<p>OP…what was your EFC?</p>
<p>Perhaps the OP was thinking that schools first cover the “demonstrated need” and then layer merit scholarships on top of that, reducing the family’s contribution. We did not find that to be true, and we did find it somewhat suspicious that schools magically came up with merit awards that just happened to put the net cost of attendance right around our EFC in the mid-20K range.</p>
<p>I’m not optimistic about schools taking into account potential future expenses, real though they may be. Schools often don’t even take unemployment into consideration until the parent has been unemployed for a bit, and that is a much more severe than a possible future expense.</p>
<p>Deciding what you can commit to paying for college is critical, and will necessarily involve some tough decisions about the relative need to support a child vs. supporting elder care costs for a parent. There are no right answers on this one, but I would hope that the OP could at least commit to supporting the costs of an in-state public as a priority.</p>
<p>we did find it somewhat suspicious that schools magically came up with merit awards that just happened to put the net cost of attendance right around our EFC in the mid-20K rang</p>
<p>I don’t think that is planned. I think that when people do have EFCs in the mid 20k range, then a large merit scholarship (like half tuition) would probably leave remaining costs around COA.</p>
<p>If these are privates, a half tuition scholarship is substantial (about $15k-20k per year). These aren’t frequently given and to expect larger awards may be expecting something that just isn’t given or only given to those with the tippy-top stats. </p>
<p>Those who want larger scholarships that will cut into a large EFC need to apply to schools that will give FULL TUITION scholarships for stats. Then your resulting costs will be below EFC.</p>
<p>Awarding “without consideration of need” could simply mean the merits are not limited to financially needy students, that full-pay students are also eligible. It doesn’t necessarily mean no one looks at your EFC when awarding a figure. </p>
<p>In so many cases, there is no harm done by asking a finaid officer a few simple and polite quesitons. Each school could handle their merit awards differently: some might give a set amount to a fixed number of kids, per their policies. And some could split a pool of marked funds as they wish, up to a miximum number of grants or some target percentage of the class. There will be kids who turn down merit offers and attend other schools. There might be a desire to further entice OP’s daughter with a little more. A friend’s son was offered a 10k merit; during a “simple and polite” conversation with an FAO, he was magically offered an addl 5k. You won’t know unless you ask. Of course, the student’s desirability (incl stats, major, geography, and etc, will affect this.) And, of course, there are no guarantees.</p>
<p>*
Allegheny’s Trustee Scholarships<em>are awarded without regard to financial need to students who have balanced academic excellence with other distinctive activities while in high school.</em></p>
<p>Scholarship Amounts: Up to $80,000, distributed equally over four years of study at Allegheny (i.e. up to $20,000 per year).**</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>If the school is Allegheny, and the student was awarded the max amount (or close to it), then that would be $20k per year max. If the family’s EFC is around $30k, and the school costs about $50k, then it may “look” like the school looked at EFC for award amounts, but in truth may not have done so.</p>
<p>Yeah, but “up to $80,000.” Maybe she was offered less than 20k, based on a high EFC. OP suggests she doesn’t want to pay more than hs tuition and EFC exceeds this. But this brings up a point about assuming a smaller school with limited funds will offer what you want. We also don’t know if OP is assuming Fafsa EFC is the determining figure. Best case, there will be some icing to offer. More likely, any addl won’t make the dent OP would like.</p>
<p>Thank you, everyone. These are all very good points. We may be overreacting to our unexpected, upcoming costs of family care. We did consider all that is discussed here and thought we had done our homework. D1 is a great kid with mid-range stats, and she carefully chose to apply to schools where she was a good match. There are a few safeties in the mix. Yes, mom2collegekids, Allegheny is one of these schools, as I posted in that thread. And Arabrab, we also “find it somewhat suspicious that schools magically came up with merit awards that just happened to put the net cost of attendance right around our EFC in the mid-20K range.” </p>
<p>Well, we have a lot to consider. Thank you again.</p>