<p>Oh yeah - I do pay car insurance - ugh. My two oldest kids didn't have a car until jr year - I am trying to keep that rule for the younger two.</p>
<p>Back to the thread topic - I admit 7 years ago when my oldest was a hs senior I was as shocked as some of you. She too had been accepted to a good school with a nice merit scholarship only to find out they don't give out any need based aid.</p>
<p>I have learned two things - to have realistic expectations AND how to play the game - somewhat.
If you know you are going to need financial aid and you are a pretty good student (you don't have to be a superstar) and you have pretty decent SAT's then you can find a school that will give you a nice mix of merit and need based aid.
I worked up a spreadsheet for my daughter - counting tuition, room and board ONLY as cost of attendance and using our FAFSA efc - the best package came from an out of state private (she can't use her state grant) and is meeting 90% if her need in a combination of merit scholarship, grant and Stafford Loan.
The other schools all met about 73% of her "need" but the gap ranged from $2100 to $7300, due to the price of the schools.</p>
<p>Lucky me - her first choice school is the one with the best need package - whew!</p>
<p>tokenadult: We are not disappointed with my Ss FA, but you asked "Which of These Universities Step up and Offer Full Aid for Demo'd Need?" I can tell you after reading my S's FA package from Stanford, that they saw need where no one else did and provided it. We are middle income with some money saved for Ss college. All other schools my S applied to said that we had no need.</p>
<p>That's what Stanford had said, too, in the estimated FA package after early admission. After FA enhancements were announced in Feb., we hoped that things would change, but weren't sure, because while our income is a bit below $100K, our assets were a bit above the "typical" standard that they require for free tuition. And there are other factors at work. We had put our S's college fund in his name, thereby going against all past advice. This year Stanford reduced the portion required from percentage of Student's Assets from 25% to 5%. They don't publish their "complex formula" for calculating aid, so we had no idea of what they were going to do. There will be a FA calculator on their site this summer, so families will be able to plan better in the future.</p>
<p>It all worked out better than we had hoped. They are paying half of the total COA of $52,390, which even includes $960 for travel. There are NO loans in the package. Of the schools that our S applied to, Stanford will be the cheapest; this includes privates with merit aid, his instate flagship engineering program and out of state flagships.</p>
<p>These few top schools with the new FA enhancements are going to be more attractive than ever to those with middle incomes. I'm sure that many excellent students never even bothered applying because the ~$200K price tags seemed so ridiculously high. Now, if you can get in, you can probably also afford it. I predict another jump in applications next year for HPYSM and the other top few with more money to give. There is nothing to lose, except the app fee and your time.</p>
<p>Congrats Gladmom- how nice that the "need" portion they fulfill is not full of loans- we had one private that not only asked for about $20k EFC (when FAFSA schools were much lower) but then had about $15k in loans, which to me is not aid, so we looked at is as costing $35k each year, as it would cost us that plus interest</p>
<p>Nice that while you have a large chunk to pay, you are not also burdened with a ton of loans and a smug finaid officer saying we helped you. Some poeple in the "system" don't seem to "get" that loans are not the same as grant aid- that you have to look at your budget and determine the ability to pay it back later! :eek:</p>
<p>drnoeyedea: Talk to their FA office and ask how they calculated your aid. Since you're not receiving any aid currently, it's unlikely that they'll decrease the amount they give you :D Better to do something than to do nothing.</p>
<p>Thanks, somemom. Yes it is still a "large chunk to pay", but we have been saving for this for our S's whole life. And our savings should cover all 4 years, unless the amount we owe goes up. It may even go down due to smaller assets in future years. We would have had to pay this same amount for in-state U. We are ecstatic to be paying the money for Stanford and ending up with no loans. It's a dream come true. Wish it could be the same for everyone else.</p>
<p>The costs of college have gone up so out of proportion to incomes that loans seem to be an important part of much of college financing. My husband's father paid for college by picking peaches and working in a cannery during the summers. Nowadays, a student might be able to earn enough to pay for expenses and books from a summer job -- forget about tuition and room/board.</p>
<p>UC Irvine, I only receive $11,000 in aid and most of it is plus loans that rip me off....have to pay $12,000 a year and my friend who makes 10,000 less a year than I, ($60,000) so he claims but he has made more than me in the past...(I guess one thing came up or something in the housing industry, but that, still, is a big decline.)... Anyways, he only has to pay 2,500 a year and he gets the perkins loans and all sorts of extra ****...I just think it's unfair</p>
<p>It's so depressing. My D got into Rice and Kenyon, with a merit scholarship to Kenyon that they said goes to the top 10-15% of their students, but we can't afford either school. (Rice gave zero dollars.) We make <$130,000, with three other kids. Our EFC is $56,000. There is just no way that we can justify draining all our savings. We are getting too old, and the 401K can and does change for the worse at times. We are waiting to hear about a merit scholarship (Renaissance Scholarship) from the University of Rochester, but if that doesn't come through, she may end up at LSU.</p>
<p>UMASS Amherst offered our son a $10,000 merit scholarship and $3500 loan, great deal! (18,000 for in state tuition)</p>
<p>Boston College, where he really wants to go will probably offer us nothing. It's just sad. I'd be happy if they would offer us $13,500.</p>
<p>Our EFC was ridiculously high $57,000, my husband had to sell stock options that were going to expire, but instead of putting the money away for college, he bought a car. So the money's gone, but it looks like we made a ton of money this year. I can't begrudge him, he works 60 hours a week, I guess he can't give up everything he wants for our son's college career.</p>
<p>Cornell so far has been the only school whose Parents' Contribution equaled the EFC that my family calculated using CollegeBoard & the CSS Profile. Columbia and Johns Hopkins missed it by 10K+. My father is Mightily Pi$$ed Off.</p>
<p>Ok, Caltech officially sucks. I've gotten more from every other school...including Cornell, Duke, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon, etc...that's really pathetic.</p>
<p>UChicago. I realllly love this school, too, but it's finaid is 7k less than Princeton's.</p>
<p>My contributions (including parent's and work study)
Pton - 2k
Chicago - 9k</p>
<p>9k may not seem like a lot...but it is to me. Our family has an income of 40k, one sibling in college, no health insurance, etc. My parents won't be paying a dime for college for me, and I don't want to graduate with 36k in loans.</p>
<p>Handsacrosstime, you are very lucky. Those are really good offers. Our AGI is less than yours and at the 4 schools my D was accepted to her EFC per year ranges from $5000 (state school) to $23K (NYU). We cannot afford to pay any of that for her so it will fall to her to take out loans which means that she will probably have to go to the State school as she realizes that graduating with almost $100K in debt would be financial suicide.</p>
<p>I appreciate your not wanting to go into any debt for school but it is just not feasible in this day and age. Think of it this way, knowing you are paying for this education in some way (even if it is in the future) will make you work harder and appreciate it more than if you had been given a free ride. A lot of people in worse financial situations have gotten less money so I say take whichever of the schools you feel most comfortable at.</p>
<p>I guess I should be pretty grateful here, given some of the posts. I got the best package from UPenn. I'm still surprised by that, but very pleased. </p>
<p>Worse package was from Wash U, would require me to borrow over 33K per year, still they did offer a good chunk which were mostly free scholarships and grants. </p>
<p>All the rest were in between. Cornell and Lehigh's were good, for both of those respective schools, but still talking cha-ching in loans. Applied to mostly specialized programs. Wonder if that changes anything?</p>