Hey all, I’m a month away from being a first year at Occidental College, and I ran into some questions while I was figuring out how to pay the tuition for Fall 2018.
I’ve received a tentative financial aid letter that said I will get about $35k out of the original $70k tuition fee. Where will the money from the sources(financial aid, student loan, etc.) go to? Will they be paid directly to the school or to my bank account?
I selected the monthly payment plan for the tuition fee and the payment schedule read $36k over 5 months, $7k each month; however, that was only for the Fall semester. By this information, I implied that there must be a spring semester payment, with the other half of the tuition left. This means that the total payment that I have to make is about $70k, which is different than what the letter was saying…if the financial aid award goes directly to the school, will the school adjust the monthly payment amount?
The financial aid award will go to the college and reduce the amount you owe them.
If the COA is $70k, that is $35k per semester. Your student aid will also be divided in two also, so half will be credited to your account in/around Sept and the other half in Jan. It sounds like the Oxy payment play puts both semesters of the payment play together and you pay from Sept-Jan? Some schools do that to make sure the entire year is paid well before the end of the second semester. Some schools have a 10 month payment plan, July-April, others three payments per semester, others still, like yours, five payments over two semesters.
All the money from the school/loans will be applied to your bill from the school, half in the fall, half in the spring. Only if you had an outside scholarship would that possibly go through you, and even some outside scholarship pay directly to the school.
Where is the rest of your money coming from? The payment plan sounds severe: 7000/month?
I’m confused. If the total cost of attendance is $70,000 and you get $35,000 in aid, your balance would be $35,000…so why would you need a $7000/month payment plan…unless it’s only for 5 months?
“I will get about $35k out of the original $70k tuition fee”
I hope that $70k is the total cost of attendance, and not just tuition.
Like you, we have (for a different university) a package with a scholarship which is less than the tuition. As such, we get bills at the normal time – in our case just before the beginning of each semester. The bill is reduced by the size of the scholarship. Thus the money for the scholarship is never sent to anyone, it is just subtracted from what we owe.
The financial aid people at your school should be able to verify whether this is what will happen in your case also.
That part confused me also. The balance is $35k, but the payment schedule starts from August and ends at Janurary. The Oxy website explains that we can pay over ten months, half in the fall and half in the spring.
Well…it sounds like the payments between now and January are for ONE semester only…is that possibly the case?
Seems like a $35,000 payment plan would be 10 months a $3500 each month from August through May.
Maybe the payment plan hasn’t yet been adjusted to include your aid?
Or did you forget to “accept” your aid? Or were you selected for verification?
Are you sure the monthly tuition pay plan is only fall? Usually, when you sign up for it, it’s the remaining YEAR balance broken up over several months… not one semester at the time. I’d call the financial aid office and ask.
@turtletime I was guessing it was for fall only.
It sounds like this student selected a five payment plan…at $7000 a month. Yikes.
In my experience, the monthly payment plans do not know what your financial aid is - it’s up to you to put in the right numbers for what you need to pay monthly.
Do you have an actual, not tentative, financial aid award yet? What does your actual bill say you owe for fall?
If this is actually your aid - they are paying $35k/year and you are paying $35k/year, you’d be paying off the $35K monthly, not the $70K.
You will need to figure out how much you will actually owe the school after aid pays to your account & set up your payment plan to cover what the aid does not pay. Remember that you cannot deduct a work study award (that is pay-as-you-earn, assuming you get a FWS job). You should only deduct the loans if you plan to borrow the full amount - and you have to accept the loans, do the entrance counseling, do the MPNs before the aid will pay to your account just before school begins. Don’t forget to deduct the origination fee on your loans (1.066% is retained by the government - so you need to reduce a $5,500 annual loan to an actual payout of $5,441 when determining your payment plan). Don’t factor in anything for the payment plan other than tuition, fees and any room/board. The other items in your cost of attendance (personal expenses, travel expenses, etc) are not charged to your student account so wouldn’t be included in your payment plan.