Liklihood/Amount of Financial Aid

[Anonymous]

I realize that there are many debates circulating on this forum about financial aid, who should get it, and why.
I cannot affort private for my DC, but believe that the education they would get from one of the major private high schools is (far) superior to that of the publc school.
My approx $113,000 salary/yr will not enable me to send my kids to private without a LOT of Financial Aid. What is the largenst finanicial aid package you have seen for someone in my financial circumstance?
Thank you

[Anonymous]

Bullis is almost $60k for example. That's almost 2x your salary. I'm sure you would get financial aid. Apply to Catholics. They are cheaper and maybe even boarding schools. Those with large endowments or even are in need of what your kid is offering(certain extracurriculars, URM status etc) may give sufficient aid to make tuition feasible for you. See St. Andrew's De for example

[Anonymous]

Unless you are sitting on a bunch of investments/cash, you will qualify for aid with that salary. Whether you will get enough to make it work, who knows, but it's definitely worth applying.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to ask yourself the hard question about why your children deserves aid. Just because you want it doesn’t mean you will get it. I have friend whose son was accepted to two privates (not catholic, not top 3) and offered 0 dollars. Nothing. Do does your spouse work? Is there no spouse? What doesn’t your child offer that makes him or her worth the school paying for him or her. It’s a tough question.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. What “does” your child offer…

[Anonymous]

Since this is an anonymous forum I will say it doesn't hurt to have your child apply especially if they're a strong student. Mine got very generous merit scholarships. It would have been very tight otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Catholic schools usually have lower tuition and other fees. They vary in how much aid they offer. Many Catholic schools will accept a student who is not Catholic, but they do not waive the religious aspects of the school for non-believers. If that is all ok with you, I would start there.

[Anonymous]

Many privates will "assume" an income for a non-working spouse when calculating financial aid. Families where both parents work have better chances.

Obviously, this is not the case if one is a single parent, but one must be transparent about the single parent situation. Is the other parent dead? If a divorce, can't other parent pay some of the educational coats? Etc.

[Anonymous]

The only case I personally know of where any private school provided a 100% free ride was in a dire situation outside the DMV.

It was for a divorced mom of 2 exceptionally bright well-behaved boys. The Ex-H actually was dead by the point the oldest applied for 1st grade at a private. The mom worked as a bookkeeper and was paid a small pittance. She had an older small house (1200 sf, no basement) in a marginal neighborhood with a underperforming public school and an old compact car. They were so poor that they depended on the Food Bank to eat and the boys never had new clothes (she used Goodwill or Salvation Army).

In that case, the K teacher of the oldest boy wrote an unsolicited impassioned plea for FA which she included with her reference letter sent to the private. After quietly confirming the essential details, a wealthy trustee of the school told the school that he would pay their costs out of his pocket. The boys and mom were never told who paid their school costs, but it is a name that some readers would quickly recognize. The hot meal that was included for all faculty and students often was their only hot meal.

Both did very well academically in that private. Both were able to get into good colleges and graduate with an employable degree (and a lot of student loan debt). Without that FA, their lives would have been very very different. Best case they likely would have gotten jobs as manual laborers -- if not for the generosity of that trustee.

[Anonymous]

If you are a single parent, they will expect the other parent to fill out the FA forms too. Just an FYI.

[Anonymous]

Private schools are for rich kids to get away from poor kids like yours. That’s just the way it is. They’ll say stuff like “hey we’re 50k but 30 percent of our kids get some aid,” which means that 70 percent are rich enough to pay full freight and the large majority of the other 30 are paying at least 10k. That means rich. It’s kind of disgusting, actually. And for what? As is often discussed on this board, even the very best privates here don’t place as well as many privates in NYC and other places and some publics do nearly as well too. So we’re talking about kids sheltered by money who aren’t necessarily the best of the best.

A very close relative was accepted at virtually every private the family applied to. Very good student but not exactly an Einstein and with no outstanding extras. Great kid, really. But the paltry aid offered still made the price prohibitive. The one school that waitlisted made clear that they’d make room if the kid would full pay. That says it all. We’re not talking “need blind” admissions — you pay, you’re in.

Terrible system.

[Anonymous]

To answer OP's question, nobody is answering because no one knows. Schools are all different. I think you would still be expected to cover at least $10k, tuition increases every year, and there are a lot of fees you don't expect. But there are the rare kids that are allowed a little bit more aid than that. But no one can predict where or who.

Apply broadly, don't get too emotionally tied to schools, and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

Based on the comments here and the forum in general, many posters don't understand the purpose of Financial Aid or how it is administered by the schools.

FA is an enrollment tool that helps the school fill its classes especially with students it wants.

In its Financial budget for the year, the school allocates a fixed amount for Aid. Once that is allocated, there isn't any more money.

The average award is 50% of tuition which means that half of the FA awards are for less than 50%. Very large awards are extremely rare because they absorb such a large percentage of the FA budget.

If at this late date there is money left in the FA budget and the school wants the student badly enough --- for whatever reason --- then there's a possibility.

If there isn't any it won't matter how good the story is or acute the need of the applicant.

[Anonymous]

OP, what is special about your kid such that you could get a huge chunk of FA? Star athlete? Genius student?

[Anonymous]

OP, are you looking for this fall, 2025? If so, very little chance of substantial aid. If you’re asking in advance of the next cycle, looking for fall 2026, no one here can tell you but it doesn’t hurt to try.