What does "we meet 100% of demonstrated need" really look like in numbers?
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Anonymous
| Our HHI is $180k, our expected family contribution was $80k. My child was NMSF, top grades, etc. he got merit aid at some great schools, but zero merit at any top 50. He did not get any financial aid anywhere other than the standard $5500 loan for completing FAFSA |
Anonymous
| If your HHI is $200k and you have $500k+ home equity you should be full pay. |
Anonymous
| Schools are getting away with some very fuzzy wording, in may mind. Their idea of "demonstrated need" involves loans, definitely. Then they come away feeling good about themselves, but meanwhile they have saddled my child with loans she will have for year to come! I will say that the FAFSA calculator is pretty darn eye opening as to what they think we as parents are supposed to be able to contribute. I don't know how they think it's gonna happen, but for us with a combined income of just over 200K and another child in college, they expect us to contribute $30K per year for our rising college student. And they offered her $1K in work study and $5K in student loans. Total BS. |
Anonymous
30k EFC for 200k income seems generous, PP with HHI 180k has 80k EFC! |
Anonymous
Lot of non-retirement Assets? |
Anonymous
| The college’s Net Price Calculator is a better tool than the FASFA calculator. If either parent owns their own business, it get trickier. |
Anonymous
Isn’t most schools ‘s NPC consistent with FASFA calculator Other than a few top private ? |
Anonymous
No, if the school uses CSS then the NPC will be different than FASFA. |
Anonymous
| Any merit aid usually is subtracted from need based aid. Most schools don’t stack scholarships. In fact, most schools will subtract outside scholarships from what they give you in need based aid. |
Anonymous
| There are some schools that meet full need with no loans. |
Anonymous
| Your "financial need" is total cost of attendence minus your expected family contribution as determined by the school. You have to "read the fine print" for each school to see how they meet that need -- some include loans and some are all grants/scholarships. Usually small amount (a couple k) is through work study. Merit scholarships are separate. Some schools grant merit scholarships even though you do not apply for financial aid -- but rare at highly selective colleges. |
Anonymous
CSS can identify assets the FAFSA doesn’t. The schools are just trying to get the aid to the neediest people. A lot of people think they need aid when they are actually well off. |
Anonymous
Our friends, a family of 4, have an HHI of 95K. They were offered loans and about 5K off of tuition. That's it. That was the "need aid" they got |
Anonymous
At $300K, you can afford to pay for college. If you choose to spend it on a more expensive house, cars, travel, dining out, etc. then why should someone else subsidize you when some of us make 1/3 what you are making and manage to save? |
Anonymous
There has to be more to this as that seems very low for that HHI. |