<p>My daughter has applied to seven colleges. Two reach schools, three in state private colleges and two safety in state public universities. She has received admission/financial aid letters to all except her top choice, one in state private college and the two in state public colleges. Of the financial aid letters received, all have have included gift aid (merit scholarship and grants) for approximately 50% of tuition and roughly 35% of total cost of attendance. She is ranked 1 of 270, top EC's, student body president, four year letter varsity tennis, leadership, National Honor Club, etc. etc. (you know the drill). EFC is about $15,000. My questions ... does this seem like good financial aid? Average financial aid? All that we can expect? This would leave paying/borrowing about another $26,000 to $36,000 per year. I would be interested hearing how other families like us are handling this.</p>
<p>I am finding that aid packages are all over the place. Every school that D has aid offers from included substantial merit scholarships. However, each of those schools is quite expensive, leaving a gap to be filled between EFC & cost of attendance. Schools fill that gap very differently. One school gave an institutional grant, no loans, and got the cost to us below FAFSA EFC. While I still wish it would cost less, that's a darn good package. Another school gave a similar package, but it did include a $2500 student loan to get the cost to us a bit below FAFSA EFC. Another school included somewhere around $5500 in freshman loans, plus a work study amount --- and the cost to us was above our FAFSA EFC. I will be interested to see how the rest come out. She is only truly interested in 2 now, and we are waiting on the other for notification. It's certainly interesting to note the differences. School #3 dropped off D's list as soon as she saw her financial aid letter.</p>
<p>hi baghdatis ,</p>
<p>Welcome to CC. "Normal" when it comes to financial aid is a realative term as different schools use differet approaches to determining financial aid. bear with me as this is going to be long.</p>
<p>In general financial aid is given based on the following:</p>
<p>COA- EFC = demonstrated need</p>
<p>COA = Cost of attendance (tuition, room/board. books, misc)
EFC= Expected family contribution/ EFC ( combination of parents income + assets along with the students's income+ assets)</p>
<p>Some school use a federal methodology and the FAFSA only to determine your Expected Family contribution and your demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Other schools use an institutional methodology (FAFSA + CSS profile) or (Fafsa + their own Financial aid form).</p>
<hr>
<p>The fafsa and the CSS profile use 2 different set of methodologies when calculating your EFC. This is the major reason for the disparity in the EFCs. </p>
<p>At minimum you file the FAFSA (at almost every school) to determine your eligibility for federal aid (Pell/ seog grants, stafford and perkins loans). Most public univeristies will just require the fafsa (the exception may be UVA, UNC- CH, Mich and a few others which may require their own forms)</p>
<p>The CSS profile is used at different colleges that distribute their own institutional aid (Many of these schools have much deeper pockets).</p>
<p>Many schools that use a federal methodology to determine EFC will require only the FAFSA. Schools that use an **instutional methodology]/b] or a combination of the 2 will require the CSS profile or their own FA forms.</p>
<p>Differences between the IM and FM models are</p>
<p>IM collects information on estimated academic year family income, medical expenses, elementary and secondary school tuition and unusual circumstances. FM omits these questions.</p>
<p>IM considers a fuller range of family asset information, while FM ignores assets of siblings, all assets of certain families with less than $50,000 of income, and both home and family farm equity.</p>
<p>FM defines income as the “adjusted gross income” on federal tax returns, plus various categories of untaxed income. IM includes in total income any paper depreciation, business, rental or capital losses which artificially reduce adjusted gross income.</p>
<p>FM does not assume a minimum student contribution to education; IM expects the student, as primary beneficiary of the education, to devote some time each year to earning money to pay for education.</p>
<p>FM ignores the noncustodial parent in cases of divorce or separation; IM expects parents to help pay for education, regardless of current marital status.</p>
<p>FM and IM apply different percentages to adjust the parental contribution when multiple siblings are simultaneously enrolled in college, and IM considers only siblings enrolled in undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>The IM expected family share represents a best estimate of a family’s capacity (relative to other families) to absorb, over time, the costs of education. It is not an assessment of cash on hand, a value judgment about how much a family should be able to use current income, or a measure of liquidity. The final determinations of demonstrated need and awards rest with the University and are based upon a uniform and consistent treatment of family circumstances.</p>
<p>Except in the most extraordinary circumstances, Colleges classifies incoming students as dependent upon parents for institutional aid purposes, even though some students may meet the federal definition of “independence.”</p>
<p>Students enrolling as dependent students are considered dependent throughout their undergraduate years when need for institutional scholarships is determined.</p>
<p>For institutional aid purposes a student may not “declare” independence due to attainment of legal age, internal family arrangements, marriage or family disagreements.</p>
<p>Your COA (cost of attendance) is tuition, room board, books travel expenses and some misc. expenses associated with attending college.</p>
<p>You can go to the college board website and look up the "average" financial aid for your school (but remember your individual mileage may vary)</p>
<p>this link can also help break things down for you:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.finaid.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/</a></p>
<p>Part 2 packaging financial aid</p>
<p>Not every school meets 100% of demonstrated need (if a school does not meet 100% demonstrated need, it 'gaps' ). It is on the family to come up with a way to fill the gap.</p>
<p>Schools use different approaches to "package" our finanical aid.</p>
<p>the financial aid package may have any or all of the following components:</p>
<p>*Student self help *</p>
<p>the self help portion of the package will consist of student loans (subsidized or unsubsidized stafford loans, perkins loans,) and work study (federal work study or Work study employment). Some school will give your student the maximum loans:</p>
<p>$3500 freshman year
4500 sophomore year
5500 junior year until student obtains 1st bachelors degree</p>
<p>Federal Aid (if eligible)</p>
<p>Pell grants (Ranging from 0 to $4310)
SEOG Grants (not all schools give SEOG amount varies by school)
academic competiveness grants</p>
<p>**State aid <a href="if%20eligible">/b</a></p>
<p>At minimum, you have to be an in-state resident. State aid could be given based on need/ merit or a combination of the 2 State aid varies from state to state (please check the state programs for your state)</p>
<p>Some states have reciprocity agreements (where if you live in a neighboring state, your student is eligible for in-state tuition in that state(s) along with your state)</p>
<p>*Instutitional funds *</p>
<p>grants/scholarships based on need (the 2 terms are used interchangably) these monies do not have to be repaid.</p>
<p>Merit money - Scholarships based on any of the following factors; need, gpa, class rank, SAT/ACT score, music, art, athletics, leadership, etc the school will state if the scholarship is automatically renewable, if student has to reapply each year or if there is a minimum GPA required to keep the scholarship.</p>
<p>Parent Loans</p>
<p>Comparing packages</p>
<p>I suggest that you make an excel spread sheet with the following headings:</p>
<p>school name
EFC
total financial aid package
work study
student loans
need based scholarships
merit scholarships
parent loans</p>
<p>then look at the "free money" (scholarships and grants) vs. how much money you will be paying out of pocket between your EFC, GAP, loans (although they are repaid at a later date, the money is coming out of pocket)</p>
<p>Then compare the amount of debt that your child will have upon graduation (worse case scenario if there is a student loan, assume there will be a maximum stafford loan each year) I would add this amount to the out of pocket cost as it will still have to be repaid in the future.</p>
<p>this way you can see the difference in packages.</p>
<p>I hope this helps</p>