Financial aid is based on your family income, net worth, money in bank, etc. Merit is totally and completely based on your kid's academics/EC/resume/merits Any one can get Merit aid Only those who are lower income/low income can get financial aid. Nobody making 250K is getting much if anything at all for financial aid. |
Troll aid |
2 kids at Ivies. 240k. No aid. We lived frugally and saved. Not lying. |
NP: Were these ED or EA candidates? Ran the NPC on a bunch of schools. Most have EFC at $30-$40K, which is doable for us with 529, Grandmas, and our earnings. A few were $50K+. I don't think ED is an option for us. DC's favorite school so far is one of the $50Ks, of course. I would prefer to have the option to compare offers. |
🤣😂🤣😂 |
State schools are good. |
In addition to the answer provided above (financial aid is need-based, merit isn't), I'll add: - At some schools, merit aid is an honor awarded only to a small number of people. At other schools, virtually everyone gets merit aid, becoming essentially a form of tuition discounting. There may be wide variation in the size of merit offers, though. - Most elite schools don't offer merit aid. But the most elite schools are unusually good with need-based aid (financial aid); their endowments allow them to make financial aid offers to a wider a range of families, including those that are middle class. - Schools in less popular locations (Grinnell in Iowa, for example) offer merit in ways that similarly ranked schools don't -- as part of a strategy to getting students to commit to these areas. - Different schools make different choices. Skidmore, for example (ranked 38) apparently gives basically no merit aid, while a number of schools with higher rankings give substantial merit. - Merit at many private colleges might take 10-35K off the sticker price, but that won't be enough to with public ones. But once you get to a certain point (for LACs, I'd guess it's colleges ranked 70+?), the merit offers can bring the cost of attendance in line with (or even below) public colleges. As one example, a number of people on here have said that College of Wooster (ranked 75) made offers that were near or below cost of their state flagship. - You can figure out what the average merit aid is by looking at a school's Common Data Set, which most publish on their web site. - Read Jeff Selingo's Book "The Price You Pay for College." It's really quite helpful. |
$38,000 at Loyola Maryland- merit aid |
This is good information and shows the income chart. The chart assumes 0 assets so the actual income amounts will be lower if you have equity in a home etc.
https://thecollegeinvestor.com/43805/student-aid-index-sai-chart/ |
This is (mostly) us. HHI a bit less, savings a bit more. SAI? North of 70K. Not happenin'. DC is going to a state school with significant merit they earned. It will still be a stretch and, realistically, pushes out retirement age a few years. Oh well. Good thing I love my job. |
Yeah, our sai was over 70k. No freaking way could we realistically pay that! |
No, zero need based aid from any public or private college.
Son will be full pay with a little merit aid at in state public. |
Not necessarily. We filled that out and still got nada. Also got a weird message from a board member calling us poor…? |
FAFSA - loans only $15k/year merit at Pitt (honors college) $5k/year merit at Penn State (honors) No FA |
Most of what is called merit aid is actually combined merit/need. If you have to fill out the CSS profile or submit the FAFSA to apply for it, it’s combo aid. Merit aid is offered without that information and with the offer of admission or immediately after with more selective schools. The criteria are also clearer. Some schools are more open with that information than others. |