Wide range on the meaning of Full Need

@ BU and NEU…the financial aid package doesn’t change…but the cost of attendance just might. Do these school increase the aid by 3-5 % when costs increase by that amount? I don’t know the answer.

@collegemom9 it is possible to back out of any ED acceptance if the finances don’t work out. That is the one very legit reason to back out. The rub is…if you have only that ED offer, you don’t have any other net costs to compare it to. That ED net cost might be the best one for you…or it might be the worst. If you accept it…you will never know if other net costs were lower because you have to withdraw all other applications. And if you decline it…you will kick yourself if your other acceptances come in with the same or a higher net cost.

@thumper1 NEU increases their package to accommodate for increases in tuition. Not sure about BU.
And yes, I’m very well aware that all ED acceptances work the same way. Some schools, however, encourage you to not apply ED if you can’t afford full price (Tulane, for example, was very specific about this in their information session) Emory is not one of those schools. Applying and getting accepted to a school like Emory that is generous with FA can be a win win. Yes, you don’t get to compare offers but if they come back with a number you can afford it can be great. In our case, we didn’t need to worry about getting the lowest number We needed the offer to be at a specific number and that was what mattered most. We were lucky that we got the number we could afford and the package was likely the best we would have received from any of the schools on our list.

I just always assumed that every school did every year as a brand new application for financial aid and you got whatever their magic formula says someone in those circumstances gets. Is that the standard way it is done? Are BU and Northeastern the two outliers or is this more common? And is there an easy way to figure this out for different schools without calling their financial aid office ?

@dadof4kids I haven’t heard of others but bet there are. You could try googling it or talking to a well qualified college coach. Those were the only 2 schools that I came across in our search.

Yes, you do have to reapply for financial aid each year at college. But schools vary on how they treat post freshman. Year financial aid. Many only require the FAFSA after freshman year, and only ask more more inf if they feel they need it.

Most schools do expect students to assume more of the cost of education each year. Some of this is reflected in the increased Direct Loan limits. They may also expect more summer earnings, more work study hours. Usually the freshman financial aid package is the most generous, from what I have seen

If a sibling goes to college, not all colleges follow the general formula used from the onset in splitting the expected family contributions per student. FAFSA splits the parental EFC in half, PROFILE tends to multiply it by 60%, I believe, but that’s something that should be discussed with the FAO. If it’s critical, make note of that commitment in writing. I’ve seen schools just throw a few hundred more into the kitty in such cases.

Loss of job and other such events that require the judgement of the FAO, can go any which way. I’ve been astounded at how inflexible FAOs can be I’ve had friends who pulled. their kids from schools out of frustration. Some crazy stories, I have.

Getting merit scholarships that only require meeting a GPA for renewal would be one way you can get cost certainty. Though the Ivies and top LACs don’t offer that.

There are also a small number of colleges that don’t increase the costs of attendance for you…it remains what it was freshman year. Some also must freeze your tuition costs.

BUT you still apply for aid annually with these.

Well, for some of us, that required GPA can be a big problem. There are merit awards that do not have stringent GPA requirements, and I certainly prefer them.

This is not my experience, but hey, I have not personally dealt with “most” schools. At genuine meets-full-need schools, if parents and/or the student pay for some or all of the family contribution from assets and those assets decrease through the college years as they are used for college expenses, the need based financial aid packages will be increasingly generous in the later years, all other things being equal.