<p>I would imagine that the school would stick in some loans, but generally, based on your experience, what else shows in the letter? How large are the grants, if any?</p>
<p>I don’t see how anyone can give a general answer to your question. Is your EFC less than your COA, or greater than your COA? If greater than, you might be offered an unsubsidized loan of $5500, and that’s it. If less than, it’s possible all you’d get is the unsub loan, with a gap remaining. Or you might get a university grant. Or merit aid. Or all of the above. It really depends on the school.</p>
<p>And the kid.</p>
<p>assume it’s above the EFC</p>
<p>A Cornell mom told me that she was shocked that her child received no “free money”. Her D’s “need” was filled with a Stafford loan and work-study. She was upset because she thought the need would be filled with a free grant and that her D could help with the “family contribution” through a student loan and a part-time job. Needless to say, the D could not do so since those monies would be going towards “need.”</p>
<p>It really is going to depend on the school. </p>
<p>Many schools don’t give ANY free money to those with high EFC’s - even if they have “need”. That’s because most schools don’t have any/much institutional aid to give, so they rely on federal aid. Since federal aid is not free money to those who have moderate to high EFCs, then most students with moderate to high EFCs get no free money at all. </p>
<p>What kind of schools will you be applying to? I know you’re from Calif, so I’ll use UCs as an example since I’m familiar with those.</p>
<p>If you’re applying to a UC and your EFC and income/assets are above Pell Grant, Cal Grant, and Blue and Gold limits, then only expect to get loans and maybe work-study…even if you have some need. </p>
<p>So if your EFC is $14k and the COA for a UC is $30k then even though you’ll have $16k of “need,” you’ll still likely only get a $5500 Stafford loan and maybe $2500 work-study. You’ll likely have $8k in gap.</p>
<p>If my EFC is 70k (which unfortunately is probably close to the actual number, since my parents own several homes), will anything be packaged?</p>
<p>…Hopefully at least the Stafford loan. If I’m gonna get a loan, I would at least have that option first w/o having to call them up under nervous circumstances :(</p>
<p>If your EFC is $70K, which would be above any cost of attendance I know of (so far), the most you’d be offered would be an unsubsidized loan.</p>
<p>If you’re nervous about paying a school’s cost of attendance, you need to look at lower-cost schools.</p>
<p>Or merit aid schools that don’t factor in need.</p>
<p>With an EFC above the cost of attendance, you will see unsubsidized Stafford loans (if you completed the FAFSA)…and any merit aid (some schools send merit aid in a separate notice). </p>
<p>If your EFC is above the cost of attendance, you will not receive federal work study as an award. Work study is a need based, federally funded award.</p>
<p>Why would you think there would be “grant money” (which is need based aid) for a student with an EFC above the cost of attendance?</p>
<p>The example with the Cornell student happens a lot. Families with an institutional EFC of, say $50K, going to a school that has a total COA of close to $60, are finding that Staffords and workstudy are being used to close that gap. The problem with that solution is that those parents are often counting on the $5500 Stafford and for the student finding part time work at school, to make up some of that EFC, with the college picking up that final gap with a grant. </p>
<p>In a sense, that is what happened with us. Our inst EFC was just above the COA of the most expensive schools which means we just missed getting any consideration for any financial aid. But my son got a merit award which brought the cost down to close to what we could afford. We could then hit up the Stafford loans and my son could work about 12 hours a week to bring the cost to where we could afford this top priced school. However, had our EFC been just below the COA, and instead of getting any grant, the school used those STAFFORDs and added work study to the package, we would have had absolutely no wiggle space. </p>
<p>And that is assuming that the institutional EFC is even a number the family feels is realistic, which very few, particularly close to break points, feel is doable</p>
<p>^^That is a reasonable strategy if cost is a factor. We did a similar thing. Looked for schools that were close to our EFC which was very close to what we were “willing” to spend albeit on the high side and then used merit awards and Staffords to bring the immediate out of pocket costs down and give the kids some skin in the game.</p>
<p>Then you can see how it could back fire if you are a bit on the other side of the EFC. If the school uses those STAFFords and the kids’ time with workstudy, you are stuck with taking out more loans to come up with the EFC.</p>
<p>Siglio…</p>
<p>You’re in a similar situation as we are…very high EFC from assets, so no “free” aid. You probably wouldn’t even get any “free” aid with 2 in college. All you could get is a $5500 student loan for frosh year.</p>
<p>So, since you have an unaffordable EFC, then you need to look at merit scholarships.</p>
<p>ive already kinda figured that…but im uncertain about how im gonna fill a few 1000$ gap…maybe my parents can pay it, or i can get a loan, or i can find a non-institutional scholarship</p>
<p>It really depends on how large the gap is and how much your parents can pay. There is no real answer to your question without this information. In many cases, as has been mentioned before, what happens for some high EFC families is that they get that unsubsidized Stafford loan and that’s it. Not only do they have to meet their EFC, they have to meet a huge gap too, without using federal loans (since they’ve already taken them!) You really want to stay away from private loans as much as possible; depending on the strength of your cosigners, you might have a high interest rate and the loan itself will capitalize to the point of being much larger in cost (to pay back) than it actually was. Scholarships are better, but they’re much harder to get. You really need to know exactly how much your parents are willing to contribute, per year.</p>
<p>*.but im uncertain about how im gonna fill a few 1000$ gap…maybe my parents can pay it, or i can get a loan, or i can find a non-institutional scholarship *</p>
<p>You say that you have a few thousand gap. Is that for a UC? if not, where?</p>
<p>Refresh my memory…how much will your parents pay each year? $10k? $15k? $20k?</p>
<p>When your EFC is higher than COA (and is unaffordable), then you need a well thought out strategy based on what your parents CAN pay and what money you can get.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships are unpredictable since they are often for one year and therefore you won’t know if you’ll have a bigger shortfall the following years when costs go up and scholarships go away…</p>
<p>m2ck i would like to refresh your memory but…i really don’t know how much they’ll pay now…sometimes they say it’s 20k/year, other times it’s 10k/year or 5k/year and sometimes nothing</p>
<p>they would much rather i get a private loan than pay it seems</p>
<p>anyways im kinda sorry if i seem too emphatic about all this…the uncertainly kinda sucks…oh well at least it’s better than realizing i can’t pay a month before college starts or dreaming of the tuition fairy</p>
<p>Siglio…your parents (or someone) will have to cosign for a private loan. It his highly unlikely that you will be able to secure a loan in your own name only (except for the Stafford). You need to discuss this with them too.</p>
<p>And discuss this in the context of deciding what you will be doing after high school. Your parents may be expecting you to go to the state university and have money for that allocated. </p>
<p>Tell them you are trying to craft a list of colleges to apply to and know that finances play a part in this. Ask them what they will be able to do to help you out.</p>
<p>My cousin has been vague with her son as to what the family is able to pay for his college until now. I think that she and her H were harboring hopes that he would somehow get enough money to go where ever he wants to go. He is an only child, so they can focus their attentions and assets on him. </p>
<p>However, now that we are approaching the time of actually applying, when we spoke, I made it clear to her that applying to a whole category of schools that you can’t afford with little chance of getting enough aid or scholarship to attend is not a good idea. For her son to have the best chance of getting some money, and of having a nice choice of schools that they could afford, there has to be a core of schools on the list that have a realistic chance of not only admissions, but having a cost that is within their range. I never said to throw out any school since having some reaches is certainly not unreasonable, as long as everyone well understands what they are. When she, her H and s went over the schools and researched them this month, they came to the conclusion that really the state schools and some local schools for commuting are the best bets in that area with a couple of schools where a big maybe in terms of merit money could come into play. Their need is such that, it is highly unlikely that they could afford a private school without merit money, a lot of it. Even the state schools are going to require loans on their part if their son goes away for college, which he wants.</p>
<p>Some of the smaller state schools just might have some merit money to give, and their costs are less than the state biggies, so they will serve as safeties. The major state schools will be the matches, and a few CAtholic colleges that give merit money are the reaches. The absolute safeties are some local schools that they can definitely afford if he commutes. </p>
<p>Once all of this was clear, it made things much easier, and their son is ever so relieved to know exactly where things stand. He’ll let schools like the UScranton, Fairfield and Fordham know exactly what the scoop is in terms of what he needs to go there, and understands that full price at those schools is unaffordable.</p>
<p>*but…i really don’t know how much they’ll pay now…sometimes they say it’s 20k/year, other times it’s 10k/year or 5k/year and sometimes nothing</p>
<p>they would much rather i get a private loan than pay it seems
*</p>
<p>Is one parent saying one amount and the other saying a different amount (when the other parent is not there)? If so, then try to sit them down together and hash out a commitment. Explain that you have to know an amount and that you cannot take out a large private loan since you have no income/assets to qualify. </p>
<p>Do they understand that students **cannot <a href=“and%20SHOULD%20NOT”>/B</a> take out large private loans? The federal student loans have max amounts for a REASON; new grads can barely pay THOSE back!!! That’s why additional private loans would be ridiculous.</p>
<p>Try telling your parents the following…</p>
<p>Tell them that you’re going to try to get as much scholarship money as possible and that you’ll take out the max student loan amounts ($5500, 6500, 7500, 7500) during your 4 years of college, but you’ll still need some help from them. </p>
<p>Many parents are afraid to state an amount because they think their child will forgo scholarship opportunities because the parents will pay instead. However, many parents will “step up” and pay the difference if they see that their child has worked hard to get as much scholarship money as possible. :)</p>
<p>( If they can’t come up with cash, THEY may need to take out a Parent Plus loan that THEY will be responsible for. )</p>
<p>What are your stats again?</p>