<p>Being new to the world of financial aid, I'm hoping someone can tell me why there is such a big difference between aid packages. One LAC offered our D $5000 in loans; I don't know how they expect us to pay the remaining $38,000. Another offered a $13,000 merit scholarship; we would have to somehow fund the remaining $36,000 ourselves.</p>
<p>Yet another LAC, similar in size to the first one, offered a total of $32,000, of which $5500 is loans and $2000 is work study; in other words, over $24,000 is grant and scholarship money. Another somewhat smaller LAC offered essentially the same package.</p>
<p>So back to my original question: why is there such a big difference between aid package?</p>
<p>Because some schools have more money available (larger endowment - really rich schools can meet 100% of need with very little or nothing in loans), and because some schools want your D more than others do.
It’s pretty common for fin aid packages to vary. Yours vary more than average.
The good news is that it sounds like your D has a couple of affordable good choices.</p>
<p>CBParent – there are no guarantees and colleges will generously fund only the students they truly want. (Most schools that claim to meet the full need of all their students are pretty choosy about which students they admit). </p>
<p>In my family we just assumed that if a college did not offer enough aid, it went off the list. I remember greeting my son with “good news and bad news” more than once: “X college has accepted you but they have not offered enough aid, so you can’t attend.” (One college sent a free t-shirt with the admission package, so my son threw away the acceptance letter but kept the t-shirt – it was funny to see him wearing a t-shirt for a school he never attended).</p>
<p>If you take a look at how much of the grant money at each school is need-based (usually called a grant) rather than merit based (usually called a scholarship), it might make more sense. Also, take a look at which LAC’s are FAFSA-only, and which are Profile schools. The FAFSA schools will all be working off the same EFC; the Profile schools will each have their own calculation of the EFC.</p>
<p>Also, if you look at each school’s financial aid profile at College Board, you can get an idea of what their typical pattern of aid is. It will tell you, on average, what % of need each school meets, what the average merit scholarship is, what the average need-based grant is, and what % of students have full need met.</p>
<p>With that info in hand, there weren’t any huge surprises at the 5 LAC’s our daughter applied to this year. Still a range of offers, but nothing we weren’t expecting.</p>
<p>So, looking at the little bit of info you provided, I’d guess you had a FAFSA EFC in the 10K range, and the last two schools met nearly all of the need with grants, loans, and ws. They may also have been FAFSA-only schools.</p>
<p>The first two may have been Profile schools, and they included other factors (home equity) which would likely bump your EFC for those schools. They may also be schools (whether FAFSA or Profile) which don’t meet anywhere near full need.</p>
<p>Finally, merit scholarships are often an indication of how much a school wants a particular student. The first school wasn’t particularly interested (it may have been the most selective of the bunch). The other schools were more interested.</p>
<p>“why is there such a big difference between aid package?”</p>
<p>Except to say that each school has its own institutional needs, we generally never find out why big differences exist, just as we sometimes don’t understand why Amy was admitted but Roy was rejected. The schools themselves could well use that old break-up line: It’s not you, it’s me.</p>