<p>i think i qualify for the blue and gold plan but they only gave me 3.7k in scholarships. The rest are loans. My family only makes about 72k a year. </p>
<p>even here University</a> of California - Grants, </p>
<p>the person with the parent income of 80k has 8k in grants. Am I missing something here?</p>
<p>You need to call the financial aid people at the university to find out. Could just be a simple mistake, or it could be something more.</p>
<p>I see that you live in the Bay Area. Did you go to high school in Calif? How old are you…I think B&G has an age threshold.</p>
<p>Yes, I went to school in CA all my life. I’m 19 turning 20 this Sept.</p>
<p>you need to call and ask why you don’t have aid under the Blue and Gold plan which promises fees to be paid for students whose family’s earn under $80k. </p>
<p>(does your family have any other income besides the earned income from jobs? Do they have child support income, or rental income, or anything else?</p>
<p>This is a good lesson in why you can NOT compare yourself with others “down the block”. Each case is massively independent of the next. The student down the block with family income of 80K may have far more dependents (granny, siblings, grandchildren) or more kids in college or other factors that come to bear in the 100 question FAFSA.</p>
<p>Don’t bother to compare yourself to others. You will become either vain or bitter (sounds like you are well on the way to “bitter.”). </p>
<p>Grab a copy of “Paying for college without going broke” (Princeton Review) and scrutinize every line of your Fafsa to see if you are missing anything. Then email fin aid and ask why the Blue and Gold plan isn’t applying to you. </p>
<p>One possibility is that there are some assets in your name (such as your parents socking away some money for your college). The college may want that money now (after all, it was meant to pay for college) and next year, after your assets are paid down, you might then qualify. </p>
<p>On all this fin aid stuff, the devil is in the details. So many times we hear “Rodney got a full ride” which sounds like his life is full of rainbows – but the details may be that Rodney got his tuition waived because his parents are deceased veterans and that full tuition waiver does not include room, board and many other expenses, so he still has a very challenging road ahead. </p>
<p>Master your own details. Find out the specifics of the Blue and Gold and learn why it didn’t apply to you (sometimes it is something aggravating like a piece of paper didnt’ get submitted on time . . .). But please don’t snarl at what others get. Be happy for them – and learn their tricks!</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>normally you can’t compare pkgs…</p>
<p>But…the UCs have this thing called Blue and Gold that promises free fees/tuition to Calif students who come from families that earn under $80k…regardless of family size, etc. ( I don’t think that assets count at all for B&G). </p>
<p>B&G isn’t based on FAFSA EFC…it’s based on income only.</p>
<p>Either there has been a mistake with this kid’s FA, or the family has income other than earned income…such as earnings from investments, or rentals, or something else that this kid doesn’t know about that pushed their income above that $80k threshold.</p>
<p>Was the application for B and G sent on time?</p>
<p>^^^
There isn’t a separate B&G application. UCs take the income info off of FAFSA info.</p>
<p>However, I think you have to submit FAFSA by March 2nd…so that may be the issue.</p>
<p>Angrystudent…when did you submit your FAFSA???</p>
<p>And…did you submit a GPA verification form to the Cal Grant program from your previous school (high school or CC),</p>
<p>interesting post olymom. What do you mean by assets? like investments? My family has ~220k in investments but I don’t think that would push the income up b/c those are in CDs, i think an educational savings account and mutual funds, and bonds we haven’t even sold yet so i dont think those are income?</p>
<p>I submitted fafsa the day before it was due but that was an estimate. I later updated everything with all the real numbers and stuff about 2 months later. I think my CC sent in the GPA verification form b/c on the provisional award letter it said I was qualified for blue and gold.</p>
<p>My family has ~220k in investments but I don’t think that would push the income up b/c those are in CDs, i think an educational savings account and mutual funds, and bonds we haven’t even sold yet so i dont think those are income?</p>
<p>Supposedly B&G doesn’t consider assets (others can correct me if I’m wrong)…but maybe your parents earned interest on those CDs and maybe they received dividends from those mutual funds which pushed their income up after a correction. </p>
<p>Was your FAFSA corrected? I don’t know, but maybe you can go online and check to see if it was.</p>
<p>*updated everything with all the real numbers and stuff about 2 months later. I think my CC sent in the GPA verification form b/c on the provisional award letter it said I was qualified for blue and gold. *</p>
<p>It sounds like your provisional award letter was based on estimated numbers…but maybe when things were updated 2 months later, income jumped and you no longer qualify for B&G.</p>
<p>AngryStudent13 , I am in Washington State, so I am not at all familiar with the Blue and Gold program – but I do know that details make all the difference. </p>
<p>For instance, the legislative statue or minutes of the college trustee board might very well say something along the lines of “The Blue and Gold program will apply to California residents who have an adjusted gross income of $80K or less AND who have less than $50K in assets”. </p>
<p>In that (hypothetical) case, the word “AND” is huge. It means that both parts of the statement must apply to the student before the student qualifies for B&G money. </p>
<p>I am sorry to tell you this, but any college in the nation ABSOLUTELY would consider money in “CD’s” to be money available to pay for a student’s fees. A “CD” simply is a type of savings. To be sheltered from the hungry tuition monster, the money would have to be in retirement funds (and not just something labeled in your or parents’ mind as “retirement” – it has to be in official IRA type funds)</p>
<p>You are right that a CD or bond is not EARNED income (ie, you didn’t wait tables or paint houses and get paid with a CD or bond) but what interest is earned IS income and the whole kit and caboodle ARE “assets” which a college would expect your family to tap to pay for your bills. </p>
<p>That money in an educational fund is money the college is looking at, saying “Oh, goody! There’s money for us!”. And they are right. It is money your family has set aside for your education. The smart thing to do is spend it down and keep filling out the FAFSA each year. </p>
<p>Bad scenario: Have,say, $40K in an educational piggy bank but student hangs on to it and borrows money freshman year and every year afterwards and never qualifies for aid. Ends up with lots of loans.
Better scenario: Student spends $20K to pay for freshman and gets no aid. Student spends $20K sophomore year and gets no aid. Student then applies to FAFSA and gets big aid for junior year because assets for student now equal zero. </p>
<p>Please get “Paying for college without going broke” (Princeton Review) which lays this out well. </p>
<p>Please also know that you are very, very blessed if your family has $220K in assets. It may be painful to part with some of it for your college but please know thousands of people not only lack any assets, they also OWE thousands in debt and cannot help their kids with college in any way.</p>
<p>B&G doesn’t look at assets…just income. </p>
<p>*# Be a California resident</p>
<h1>Demonstrate income below $80,000 with financial need, as determined for federal need-based aid program</h1>
<h1>Under the plan, your systemwide fees will be fully covered by scholarship or grant money if you are in your first four years at UC (two if you’re a transfer student).</h1>
<h1>The plan combines all sources of scholarship and grant awards you receive (federal, state, UC and private) to count toward covering your fees. If, for example, you receive Pell and Cal Grants and private scholarships that don’t fully cover your fees, UC grant money will make up the difference.</h1>
<p>*</p>
<p>No mention of assets at all.</p>
<p>But, I do think that this student’s family income was later determined to be higher than $80k after the real info was known…or the UC just made a mistake.</p>
<p>I do think that the CDs and such are causing a higher EFC, but B&G isn’t based on EFC…it’s based on income only…which would include an INCOME that those investments generate. But the assets themselves won’t count for B&G…just for FAFSA.</p>
<p>B&G is rather crazy. You could have a 24 year old person who is a household of ONE, who has a high EFC because his income is all for himself, yet, he’d qualify for B&G as long as his income is under $80k. </p>
<p>You can imagine how high the EFC would be if a student had a household of one and an income of $78k…but he’d still qualify for B&G. Crazy!</p>
<p>Well, while it doesn’t officially look at assets, I think this is the key statement:</p>
<h1>Demonstrate income below $80,000 with financial need, as determined for federal need-based aid program</h1>
<p>If you have high assets and your EFC from FAFSA is higher than the school cost, you would not be showing ‘financial need’. With 200k+ in CDs, I would guess that the EFC is pretty high.</p>
<p>The COA of a UC is about $30k per year.</p>
<p>$200k in CDs/mutual funds is not going to raise the EFC that much. If the student’s parents are married, then about $40-50k of that is excluded from the calculations. After that, only 5.6% of the balance is considered. </p>
<p>The EFC formula certainly does not expect that a large portion of family savings be spend on a student’s college costs. That would be financially unsound.</p>
<p>Even with the $200k in CDs/mutual funds, with an income of $72k, the student would still have “financial need.” the EFC would be about $18k.</p>
<p>I cannot believe that the state of California can “afford” to give grants to kids whose parents have $200,000 dollars in assets sitting in mutual funds, bonds and CDs. That has got to be an error that those dollars are not considered. That is simply not believable.</p>
<p>That is most likely their retirement savings. Are you saying that paying for college costs trumps savings for retirement?</p>
<p>The whole Blue and Gold needs to change. There should be a FAFSA EFC element to it because it’s silly that…</p>
<p>1) A family of 2 people (1 parent and 1 child) who earns $78k, gets Blue and Gold…</p>
<p>but</p>
<p>2) A family of 3 with 2 kids in college that earns $82k does not get Blue and Gold</p>
<p>5.6% of $150,000 is $8400. With that amount tapped for ASSETS alone, I would think that the EFC for student would be MUCH higher than $17K.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you a resident of California? If not, why should you care?</p>