OK, if it is $10,000 after deducting all aid including student loans and work study, and you can only afford $1,000, then the only possible way the school can be affordable is if she gets a $9,000 merit scholarship and the school does not reduce other grants or scholarships when that is received. You and she need to assess whether that is likely.
It looks like she has no actual safeties, since her admission safeties are unlikely to be affordable, and the only affordable school is a reach for admission. Is she OK starting at a community college and then transferring to a state university to finish her bachelor’s degree, and is that affordable?
Berea is a financial safety, and though she’s right in their averages and I would normally consider it an admission safety, the nature of the school in accepting only students with high financial need and a large majority of students from KY (we’re from WI) puts it at an uncertainty. She did apply early for their Priority 1 date, had a really good Skype interview, and has had a lot of contact with her admissions counselor through email and over the phone, so hopefully that’s a boost and now we’re just waiting to hear. He sent her a birthday card and the school must have sent the same admissions checklist and copies of paper recommendation forms 3-4 times while we were in the process of applying, along with various letters from different departments and organizations, leading me to think they were at least somewhat interested in her. None of the other schools have had that amount of contact so far, but maybe I’m just reading into it.
Capital is most likely an admission safety AND financial safety which we are waiting to hear from. If she gets acceptance at either of these two schools, we’re good. Except for the fact that they are so far away from home, which will add to the costs if she wants to come home during holiday/summer.
I guess it would just be nice to have a closer-to-home option that would work financially as well so we aren’t forced into the furthest schools being the only choice. All her other applications are at schools anywhere from an hour to four hours away.
Let me check that full tuition site again. I’ve looked at it before and there were one or two possibilities but I’ll have to double check.
So, she qualifies for Prairie View A&M Presidential. The college’s site says it’s $9200 per year, but the automaticfulltuition site listed above also says it includes an oos waiver, which I don’t see discussed on the college page. Their NPC then is really awful and vague (sorry, TX). I entered it as a TX resident and it shows the following:
Cost of Attending
Total Cost $23067
Tuition & Fees $9645
Room & Board $8041
Books $1300
Other $4081
Median Grant
$4300
5.
Estimated grant and/or scholarship assistance:
$1493-$17299/year
6.
Estimated net cost:
$5768-21574/year
7.
Estimated student loans and/or student work earnings:
$874-$32594/year
8.
Estimated net cost with self-help:
$0-20700/year
So, if I assume the scholarship, an oos waiver, and a pell grant, plus student loan this is doable as well. It isn’t direct admit and it’s about as far from home as she could get though.
You may want to ask PVAMU directly if the out-of-state tuition waiver applies to the Presidential scholarship as well as the Regent’s Student Merit scholarship.
If it comes with the out-of-state tuition waiver, then the net price after the Presidential scholarship becomes $13,867. That becomes barely possible if you add your EFC + Pell grant + federal direct loan + some work earnings.
Is she able to take another ACT and SAT to try for a higher score to qualify for more big scholarships (particularly the full ride ones) in the list?
Do not expect good non-resident financial aid other than that which is scholarship related.
I will definitely contact Prairie View about the specifics. She is a senior so probably the latest, and in some cases too late, ACT would be the Dec. one. She just took the Oct and I never imagined she’d drop from her first try but she got a 22 on that one. I’m thinking the 24 is the best we can hope for with the short amount of prep time she’d have available.
OOS public schools have not even crossed our radar other than looking into MN because of reciprocity. Their aid is still minimal even with paying in-state tuition.
My DD is a CNA so she will be able to earn a fairly significant amount over the summer if they give her the hours. However, does that then run the risk of reducing her aid even further when we file for the following sophomore year? Is there a sweet spot between earning enough to help out, but not so much that she actually hurts her future aid?
[/QUOTE]
Your DD can earn up to about $6000 per year and it won’t affect her aid AT ALL.
However, she will either need to spend that money on ANYTHING before filing FAFSA (which means, she pays first before you pay anything)…and/or she put any savings in a 529 acct and then THAT would only be counted at the parents’ rate (and if you have little/no savings then it may not count at all).
If she earns most of the money during the summer, then it should be easy for her to spend most/all of it before you file FAFSA after Jan 1 since she’d have two opportunities (fall and spring) to pay semester costs before filing.
I don’t think the $$ earned thru work study gets counted at all, even if it’s in savings…others can chime in here.
Are you single or married? Someone here can chime in and say what the non-retirement savings amounts parents can have before they’re assessed at 6%.
Did your daughter sign the Wisconsin Covenant Pledge by September 2011 when she was in 8th grade? There are additional substantial state grants available to her if she did, and if she completes the paperwork by the spring 2016 deadline.
OP, we also had very low EFC, $1500, and trying to find any school that was affordable for DS was a huge hurdle, so I know exactly the difficulties you are going through right now.
My advice, only go w/ a direct admit school. Having a future unknown, with low financial resources is not something I would have chosen.
I understand your hesitation on schools that are far away, or might not be the best “fit” for your DD, but the reality is, beggars can’t be choosers. All those fuzzy good feelings about the school is something that has to be at the very bottom of your criteria, you can’t afford them, we couldn’t afford them. If your daughter wants nursing badly enough, then she needs to look at the end game. And you need to have a very long talk w/ her about this. If you feel she can’t handle that, then you limit yourself even further.
I would apply to all those schools that are just out of reach financially and hope for the best.
If she doesn’t get the aid you need, then I would do the CC route. My SIL’s niece tried for 4 years to get into the selective program at their CC, but she did get in. No it’s not ideal, and your DD might not think it’s worth it, in which case she needs to find another major.
That is the sad reality when you have specific majors, low finances, and few options. The very best of luck to you and your daughter.
The WI publics are slightly more affordable in the short term ranging from $4k-$7k after loans/work study, but in the long term they could be a disaster with acceptance into nursing being such an unknown as none of them are direct admit. I’m not sure I’m explaining that well enough, but with extremely limited financial resources we just can’t see gambling on unknown variables and hoping for the best.
She did not do the WI Covenant. This year is the first I’ve ever even heard it mentioned (our school counselors are not the most helpful bunch) and so whatever it would have offered, she is not eligible for it.
@ laralei we are definitely keeping the CC route as a last resort. It’s not ideal but if it’s all we’ve got then it’s all we’ve got. She is very open to going to the schools that are far away if they work with our finances. It’s more my hesitation than hers, feeling like she’d do better if not so far away, but I shouldn’t project that onto her.
Re: Capital, which is showing the best aid by far, our net price results list a Merit Scholarship of $28,000. On their website most of their listed scholarships don’t even go up to that amount. The only ones that look like they could be near that amount are the full tuition ones which are competitive by invite only (and tuition is more than $28k, it’s like $33k). Could there be a mistake on the NPC? I’ve run it a few times making sure I didn’t make a mistake. Or could it be a combined amount from two different awards? It’s just listed generically as “Merit Scholarship” on the NPC printout.
I know it would be further from you, but what about looking at the University of Evansville? It’s direct admit and in the past they have been extremely generous with merit aid. They also mention a Federal Nursing Student Loan that is $13000 over the 4 years-not familiar with that, but maybe something to look into.
Looks like UW Madison and UW Oshkosh do have direct admission of frosh to their nursing majors. However, a student with an ACT of 24 may not get into UW Madison at all, and would not meet the minimum ACT of 28 that is one of the criteria for direct admission to nursing at UW Oshkosh.
The non-direct-admit ways of getting into nursing in the UW system appear to all involve a competitive admission process that involves some consideration of subjective criteria as well as completion of pre-nursing courses with high enough grades and an exam. The minimum GPAs to apply are not necessarily that high, but there is the possibility that actual admission thresholds are much higher.
