<p>Dh and I have an EFC that we simply cannot afford to meet. It is based on income, not on savings. We lost our savings in the recession and we haven't been able to replace it. We have a good income, but we have fixed expenses that mean we simply cannot pay the amount of money every month for college tuition that FAFSA says we can afford. </p>
<p>I am not complaining about money. I know we are in a very fortunate financial situation. But FAFSA says we have an EFC many thousands of dollars above what we can pay. He and I are both still paying our own professional school loans, which were over $100K each, so big monthly amounts that we cannot cut from the budget. </p>
<p>Are there schools that actually award merit aid that is greater than your FAFSA-stated need. Specifically, do any of the top tier schools ever go above your official need?</p>
<p>Ds' three dream schools are MIT, Caltech and Stanford. He does have the grades/scores/profile to be competitive for admission, but we cannot pay those prices without some kind of aid to make up part if the EFC.</p>
<p>Thanks. He is an auto admit to all Texas public schools, and we can afford UT, so that is his safety. I’m just trying to determine if it is worth the costs and effort to apply to the very select schools, when we know we can’t afford the EFC there even if admitted. </p>
<p>We’ve all heard the stories about kids who get a free ride to MIT or Stanford. But the people I know in this situation had an EFC of zero. Do people with a big EFC ever get offered free rides at the schools not in the links above?</p>
<p>Some schools award merit aid that isn’t tied to financial need, but the most competitive schools (including the Ivies) generally do not. You just have to check the websites for each of the schools you’re considering - they’ll tell you upfront if they offer merit scholarships, or if they offer need-based aid only.</p>
<p>Stanford, Caltech, and MIT offer need-based aid only, as far as I know. Harvey Mudd, however, does offer merit scholarships - and if you haven’t heard of it, you should take a look.</p>
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<p>Those schools themselves do not offer merit scholarships* – only need-based financial aid. In theory, someone might get a large outside merit scholarship and use it at one of these schools, but large outside merit scholarships are quite rare.</p>
<p>*Well, maybe Caltech does; <a href=“https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=706[/url]”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=706</a> indicates that 1 non-needy student received a merit scholarship there, and 30 needy students received merit scholarships there. <a href=“http://www.finaid.caltech.edu/grants[/url]”>http://www.finaid.caltech.edu/grants</a> indicates that needy students are considered for a small number of merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I just ran the Caltech calculator – thanks for pointing that out. According to them, our need is pretty significant, so he would qualify for a decent chunk of need aid. It is much better than the FAFSA EFC calculator numbers. </p>
<p>I’m suddenly feeling much better about this.</p>
<p>The Stanford and MIT calculators may give significantly different results.</p>
<p>*He and I are both still paying our own professional school loans, which were over $100K each, so big monthly amounts that we cannot cut from the budget. *</p>
<p>Are either of you self-employed or independent contractors (have business deductions, etc)? if so, then the NPC calculators won’t work for you.</p>
<p>Since your professional incomes were affected by the economy, it sounds like at least one of you is self-employed. </p>
<p>we can afford UT</p>
<p>So, you can pay about $25k per year?</p>
<p>Do people with a big EFC ever get offered free rides at the schools not in the links above?</p>
<p>Schools that give need-based aid (like Stanford, etc) are not going to give “free rides” to those with big EFCs. They don’t have to give out merit aid because ALL of their students have high stats.</p>
<p>MIT and Stanford give virtually NO merit scholarships. If you have heard about “full rides” to those colleges, they were need based awards, not merit.</p>
<p>The threads about guaranteed merit have already been linked here. Check those out.</p>
<p>P.S. I would NOT be so comfortable with what you got from Caltech’s net price calculator. They consider NEED when awarding merit scholarships…as noted in one of the links…only ONE student who didn’t have need got a merit award. That is VERY low odds.</p>
<p>As Mom2 said…if either parent is a partner in a business or is self employed, the NPCs do NOT prove particularly accurate information.</p>
<p>EFC usually is the very least you can expect to have to pay while getting financial aid, so that just about the only way you can get merit money to “beat” it is if the award itself exceeds the aid parameters. That’s because merit money is usually applied to the need first and then the student has a lower need. Then the aid addresses this lowered amount. It can be very frustrating to get look at a $60K school, see that an aid package is likely to reduce to cost to $40K by running the NPCs, and think that if your student gets one of the $20-30K merit awards, it’s going to be good. Not likely. What happens, is that the Merit award reduces that $50K cost, so that unless it exceeds the need, there may be no additional money. </p>
<p>That you can afford your state schools puts you ahead of the game. It’s a matter now of maybe looking for schools that have some merit money that can bring your cost to what UT is. Look at some Catholic schools, at some OOS state options that are not so expensive. A school like UMass Amherst, for instance, has OOS scholarships that can bring that cost down so it is comparable to say Texas state unis. </p>
<p>My one son was looking (and did take) some schools that offered some merit money that left the gap between what we could pay and the total cost to what he could borrow ($5500 freshman year and what he could personally come up with in terms of his own savings, summer earnings and part time work while at school). He got a one time outside scholarship that made it so the loans were not needed that first year. Worked like a mule that next summer to make up that award and took an on campus job as well–that sophomore year was very tight. He got a departmental award his junior year and moved off campus in a house that reduced his living costs drastically. It was 4 years of having to plan and scrimp, but he did get to go to his first choice school, a small LAC far, far away from home.</p>
<p>My dh is self employed, but the last four years, his business has been all losses, shutting down his two satellite offices and laying off all employees. I have a proper job, but my company is hemorrhaging money and hasn’t paid our comp for three years. Financially, it is just a tough time to have a kid headed to college. </p>
<p>FAFSA says our EFC is $38K per year. Caltech’s calculator says our expected cost is $18K per year. We can swing $18 but not $38. </p>
<p>UT is top 10 nationally in ds’ intended major and he is an auto admit there. So, that is the only safety he needs. We were just trying to determine if it made sense to bother with reaches. If he has to pay a minimum if $38K per year, it is just wasted application fees.</p>
<p>Not to be a Debbie Downer, but it’d be pretty rare indeed to have a school come up with and EFC lower than the FAFSA’s. With self-employment income in the picture, I’d be skeptical of Caltech’s calculator. Apply. But brace yourself.</p>
<p>^^ Fortunately you have your safety and that is the most important college for any kid. I would continue on, perhaps add a couple colleges or unis that interest your son and are particularly targeted for him with regard to merit money that might reduce your cost and see where it all falls in the spring with the financial aid awards.</p>
<p>My dh is self employed, but the last four years, his business has been all losses, shutting</p>
<p>Then the NPC won’t be accurate AT ALL for you. </p>
<p>CSS schools are going to “add back in” some of your H’s deductions. </p>
<p>Plus, they’re going to put a dollar value on the business.</p>
<p>Some/all will also add back in the “employer portion” of FICA. </p>
<p>All will add back in any retirement contributions. </p>
<p>I’d expect that your CSS family contribution will be at least your FAFSA EFC, if not more.</p>
<p>Not to be a Debbie Downer, but it’d be pretty rare indeed to have a school come up with and EFC lower than the FAFSA’s. With self-employment income in the picture, I’d be skeptical of Caltech’s calculator. Apply. But brace yourself.</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>And, they won’t care that you have your own student loan debts.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for all of the insight. It really has been helpful. </p>
<p>“And, they won’t care that you have your own student loan debts.”</p>
<p>But I think this may not be fully correct. </p>
<p>Caltech’s calculator asks for how much you pay in parent student loan payments, and when I enter that number, it makes a huge difference in their determination of our financial need. So it looks like at least that one school does consider the impact of parental student loan debt.</p>
<p>He is going to go ahead and apply to MIT, Caltech and Stanford, just to see. If he manages to get admitted to any of them, we can see what the packages really include. Worse case scenario is he has a fantastic in-state school that we can afford where he does qualify for some merit already. It is a pretty good place to be.</p>
<p>I think it’s fine to see if he gets accepted at those schools but, if the FA numbers are bad, PLEASE don’t place him in the position of paying back loans like yours by borrowing for one of those schools.</p>
<p>Erin’s dad, absolutely. I really don’t want my kids to struggle with student loan debt. My dh is a refugee/immigrant who used loans all the way from undergrad through proessional school. I also had to self finance graduate and law school, largely with loans. We also had our oldest quite young, so we did this with a baby, with meant larger cost of living and even more loans. It was worth it for us, because it was the only way to get through school, sicne neither of our families had the money to help at all. But our plan is to find a way for dh and I to cover at least undergraduate degrees for all three kids withoiut them taking any loans at all.</p>
<p>Caltech’s calculator asks for how much you pay in parent student loan payments, and when I enter that number, it makes a huge difference in their determination of our financial need. So it looks like at least that one school does consider the impact of parental student loan debt.</p>
<p>Cal Tech seems to be unique. Other schools consider debt from medical care, but they don’t usually care about other debt. CT also seems to use their own NPC, instead of Collegeboard’s. </p>
<p>Either way, since your H is self-employed, the NPC isn’t going to be accurate on many/most websites.</p>
<p>We’re only warning you because of the posts we’ve seen in past springs where self-employed people are shocked. A father whose D was accepted to Columbia was shocked to learn that his Realtor wife’s deductions were added back in and then they qualified for no aid.</p>
<p>Texasmom, you are not alone at all, in fact, you have a lot of company, in not being able to afford your EFC. Nor could we. Technically, we could. We could sell our house, we could down scale quite a bit. But we all have to live for a lot more years than those 4 years each kid is in a college. </p>
<p>So we had to put limits on college costs. A lot of folks due. It’s so nice when there is a grandmom or some other source of money to pay the kids’ college, but that’s not the way it often works. </p>
<p>You really can’t tell how any given college will view your business and adjust your numbers. Depriciation and deductions may be added back in and the value of the business might be something you will be shocked to see. You might be able to discuss their calculations with them and get some consideration, but if the school has a precedent for your situaiton, they are not likely to come up with a whole lot more. I have a friend who worked many hours with a financial aid office to get her business valuation and income more in line with what she felt was fair, and when all was said and done, the school just gave the kid more loans and work study. THe 678 schools all tend to use the same methodology, but even among them, I’ve seen sizeable award differences, Can’t say what will and what want come up with some good numbers for you. You play the field and see what you get. Regardless, you should have your son pick some schools that you know are affordable, and that will definitely accept them. Those are the crown jewels of the college list, because that is where many kids end up when the numbers come rolling in.</p>
<p>Caltech used to have an Axeline merit scholarship – probably to someone who won the national/international science fair competition or won a gold medal at the IMO (International Math Competition). I thought that they had done away with this merit scholarship – but if that was a recent link, then maybe one person still gets it.</p>