<p>If my dad earns 200k/year, will I have any chance of getting financial aid? Should I even bother applying?</p>
<p>You will not likely get FA with that income. Your “family contribution” will be too high.</p>
<p>What are your parents saying? will they pay all the costs for college?</p>
<p>You should submit FAFSA so that you can…
- borrow 5500 if needed
- win some scholarships that require FAFSA submission
- your parent can do a Plus loan if needed.</p>
<p>Most likely not. Cannot positively say, simply because there are situations where it would be possible, but they are rare. </p>
<p>Whether you should even bother applying depends on a number of things.</p>
<p>1) If you and your family want federal loans or you are interested in some programs/merit money that require a FAFSA, that is one form you should fill out. You can answer 'No" in the application question about applying for financial aid and still complete the FAFSA in order to gain access to programs that require it.</p>
<p>2)Do any of your colleges have merit awards that require you to apply for financial aid that look like you might be eligible to ger? It is possible that with your income you can be eligible, in cases such as having more than one kid in college at the same time, if your dad is a NCP (divorce situation), a school like Harvard. And sometimes just barely being eligible for aid, puts in in the running for more merit money than just the need.</p>
<p>3).At some schools, applying for aid can lower your chances of getting accepted, so just applying to see what you might get in such cases can have those consequences. </p>
<p>4) You can apply for financial aid at some schools and not others. It’s not an all or nothing thing.</p>
<p>5) If you absolutely need aid and a school is not a possibility without it and there is a far flung chance of getting some, you might as well apply for the aid since you aren’t going to get it if you don’t apply. </p>
<p>Those who really want money need to carefully go through all of the information on the schools on their list and know very well how each one stands and works on financial aid. They can differ widely.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help! My parents are willing to pay for everything. I just don’t want them to spend too much because I have younger siblings that are going to college after me.
I was also wondering how my dad’s colleague (who earns pretty much the same salary) whose daughter at Harvard is paying less than the daughter who is OOS at Berkeley. Can any of you explain this to me? Isn’t Berkeley OOS tuition slightly cheaper than Harvard’s tuition?</p>
<p>Harvard is one college with a very generous financial aid formula. You might get aid there even at that pay level. Look at their aid formula. The UCs are very expensive for OOSers. That OOS surcharge is a big one, and they are not likely to give a dime for anyone who is out of state. If you put your family numbers in the NPC of both schools, you’ll see this clearly. Schools use different ways of calculating financial need. </p>
<p>Also, UC Berkeley does not guarantee, nor do they meet 100%of need for most of their students. Harvard does, and their definition of need for most people is far more generous.</p>
<p>I was also wondering how my dad’s colleague (who earns pretty much the same salary) whose daughter at Harvard is paying less than the daughter who is OOS at Berkeley. Can any of you explain this to me? Isn’t Berkeley OOS tuition slightly cheaper than Harvard’s tuition?</p>
<p>Well, you may not know exactly their financial situation. He may earn a bit less. He may have some extenuating circumstances (medical bills) or paying child support somewhere. Or, he may have 2 or more students in college. He may have a larger family than you do. Or, he may have younger kids in private schools and H is giving them some aid because of that.</p>
<p>You can’t just guess at someone’s financial situation and think you’d get the same thing. </p>
<p>More typically, with a $200k income, with one student in college, and no extenuating circumstances, the student wouldn’t get much/any aid from H. </p>
<p>That said, if this student got $15k per year in aid from H, it would cost less than OOS at Cal. </p>
<p>OOS at Cal is a bit less than H, but that’s not saying a lot. </p>
<p>That said, there are about 4 schools that give “super aid” and they are Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. These schools have unusually generous formulas for aid. they are the exceptions. Of course, these are the very hardest schools to get accepted to. OTHER schools that “meet need” would likley conclude that you don’t qualify for any aid.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to me that in the example above, Harvard is to some degree supporting UCB (by giving a tuition discount to the parent for having another student in college).</p>
<p>Yes, it is. THe schools that meet full need tend to give a discount. FAFSA splits the family EFC in half. Most PROFILE schools take use 60% of the figure. some use actual figures and some use stock figures which is where some families really make out. I knew some families that got great aid from school due to a second child in a state school. The private schools used a stock figure rather than actual. </p>
<p>However, it is up to the school to do this and determining the methodology. Some are not generous at all, making no acknowledgment or just throwing in a token amount , all self help. UCB probably gives no financial aid at all other than the government entitlements, for OOS students so having another kid in college doesn’t do a thing to that cost.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks for the explanations. Btw, they are Canadian citizens and not Americans, so I don’t know if they use FAFSA (I know all this because our parents are friends).</p>
<p>Harvard College provides full need to all of its undergraduates, internationals included and FAFSA is not required or even usable for foreign students.</p>
<p>Well, they would have used CSS Profile for Harvard. They wouldn’t have qualified for any aid at Cal for their other child.</p>
<p>So, H would have concluded that the family has two in college and is paying full freight for one at Cal. The fact that they had two in expensive colleges would likely have caused H to give some aid to the family. </p>
<p>Think about it…H “did the math” and saw that full price at both schools would be about 110k. H would not think that’s affordable on a 200k income…so they gave some aid for the H student. I’m not saying that they gave a lot, but even if they gave 15k, the resulting cost would be lower than Cal</p>