Would we qualify for financial AID?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, when you fill out the forms for FA, it is like a financial X-ray. You have to list the purchase price of your home, how much you have left to pay, your investments, the make and model of your cars, if you went on vacation, where you went ad how much you spent, if you have any employees in your household (butler, nanny, gardener, etc), if you have any debts and there is a space for notes (i.e., you have an elderly parent, child with special needs, a spouse that just lost their job, etc). I don't know which elements of the application carry more weight. If you have a lot of credit card debt, you may want to explain, "I lost my job and used my credit cards to keep from defaulting on our mortgage." If you have debt because you are a shop-aholic, they aren't going to help you. The schools are looking at the whole picture. When we were offered aid, I specifically asked: assuming our finances don't change drastically from year to year, can we expect to receive the same amount of money? They said yes, they assumed they were making a commitment until our child graduated.

I would sincerely hope that any family receiving financial aid at any school in this area does not employ a household staff of a butler, nanny or gardener.

Signed,

A parent who works hard to pay full freight for two kids and gets tired of the "please donate to financial aid" pitches

With the nanny it depends. My child's daycare center is charging 1800/m for infants. With twins, or three small kids in the house, I can imagine the nanny coming out cheaper. Depending on hours needed, etc.

The butler would be surprise I'd think! I hope?

Or, you could not have 3 kids if you want to do private school. Decisions, decisions..

[Anonymous]

I get th sense that some people think that FA in these private schools is like a Government program where you fill out the form, it tells you what you can afford and then the private school makes up the difference between that and their tuition.

That is NOT how it works.

The school has a pot of money called the Financial Aid Budget.

They distribute that based on what they want to accomplish. Giving one person a full tuition grant means that they have to refuse aid to three families that need a 33% FA award.

They might choose to give a promising student or athlete more aid --- up to the Family's total need --- than someone whose skills are not in an area they are specifically interested in.

Your need (What the FA formula says you can pay versus the total costs of attending) is just a reference point for the school. It can be used to compare applicants. Why admit a student with a large financial need if we know there isn't enough money in the FA budget to allow them to attend?

Every decision made by the Financial Aid / Admissions committee represents a trade-off they have to make.

It's not a Government program. It's not an entitlement. It is not a guarantee. It's only a single pot of money in any year.

A statistic they don't show is what percentage of the financial need is covered by FA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish these threads would not devolve into crossfire over "people having a right to private education." Is anyone even making that claim?

The question most people are asking is, "How do I size up what I can / ought to be able to afford." And: "What do the schools expect / offer?"

Given the high cost of living in the region, these are fair questions.

Thank you for your kind response and others likewise. We don't need to get mean on here guys. And to clarify I meant to say "DC region" for a house but it's actually Northern VA where we bought our place.

We don't have anything fancy- no fancy cars- nothing. We scrape by in this city and did so even before buying a house. We saved for over a decade. It's an expensive city. bUt we don't need character judging. Different people and priorities are different to different people. I am just asking if we would qualify

Anyway, some SSS site was mentioned. Sorry to be naive. What is this site? Would you be able to provide an address for it? I would love to put in our numbers.

Thanks so much

School and Student Services is here: http://sssbynais.org/parents/. The financial aid office of the school I was curious about uses this system, but some school use other services.

You do have pay the $49 fee (and also risk one school seeing the data, since you have to list a school to complete it). I listed the school I didn't think we could afford. Ran the numbers. Released we likely don't qualify. Deleted the school selection and went (I hope) incognito.

[Anonymous]

Ok good to know! So even if not actually applying to a school now we can list one to see the amount we "could" be qualified for? ? (In a perfect world).

If so, we will definitely do this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have more than 100k HHI, you are unlikely to get aid. This is from personal experience. It is unfortunate, but true. With that said, may as well give it a shot. Who knows.

Depends on the school. Here's info from Maret:

- 24% of students receive aid.

- The ave grant is $25,522.

- Of families receiving financial aid:
29% have gross household income under $100k
29% have gross household income between $100k and $150k
20% have gross household income between $150k and $200k
22% have gross household income above $200k

Very helpful info!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok good to know! So even if not actually applying to a school now we can list one to see the amount we "could" be qualified for? ? (In a perfect world).

If so, we will definitely do this!

Yes, once everything is submitted, there is a summary report you can view. It will list what that system's formula sees you as being able to pay.

My understanding is that individual schools only use that number as a starting point. They perform their own evaluation that may differ. And awards are based the school's budget, which I imagine is smaller than the need of applicants in any given year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just played around with the SSS form, because my sense was that we make too much to qualify for aid, but we were having a hard time figuring out how to responsibly budget for our favorite school. I have a low-cost house (under 200k) and income at about 200k. One kid. However, student loan debt and consumer debts are high, and we're just a few years out of school so we haven't had a chance to get out in front of these debts. So, our income is high but we're encumbered more than we'd like and just beginning with savings / retirement.

Bad news for me: The SSS analysis came back saying we can pay about 38k in their estimation -- which is a lot more than I feel comfortable budgeting. I have no idea if restructuring the debt would change the SSS analysis (it might give us some more liquidity, to get closer to the mark), or if explaining that the consumer debt is related to projects on the fixer-upper house would meet with some sympathy. But I suspect that the disjuncture between the estimate and what I feel I can wisely pay is simply a sign that we're not financially prepared, at least not yet. We'll probably just go to ground and work on the debt problem for a few years.

But maybe there's good news here for someone else: If you have two kids, or your house costs more, it seems possible that the SSS formula (and the related ones) will see you has having some demonstrated need.

You definitely need to restructure the debt. What you described would qualify as an "unusual debt" and not "luxury debt." Of course, the choice is yours but I can say from personal experience it makes a difference. Also, SSS is only a guide the school uses. No way the take what it recommends as iron clad "this is the only thing you can award."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have more than 100k HHI, you are unlikely to get aid. This is from personal experience. It is unfortunate, but true. With that said, may as well give it a shot. Who knows.

Depends on the school. Here's info from Maret:

- 24% of students receive aid.

- The ave grant is $25,522.

- Of families receiving financial aid:
29% have gross household income under $100k
29% have gross household income between $100k and $150k
20% have gross household income between $150k and $200k
22% have gross household income above $200k

Very helpful info!

More than you know.

Maret has 75 students in each incoming Class

If 24% of these students get FA, that's 18 students.

If 29% of the 18 who get FA are from families with less than $100K, that's 5 of the 75 students.

If the average grant is $25.500 a year that translate into a total FA budget for that incoming class of $460, 000. Or 1.836,000 for all four classes.

[Anonymous]

???

Maret starts with about 20 kids in K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:???

Maret starts with about 20 kids in K.

Based on the numbers Maret has given, you should be able to figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:???

Maret starts with about 20 kids in K.

PP's #s are for high school -- 9th grade and up, when the classes are @75 kids

[Anonymous]

What happens if one parent doesn't work by choice? As in a stay at home situation? I have heard this can impact financial aid grants. Schools don't want to subsudize 'lifestyle' choices when that parent cold be contributing to the household income and chooses not to. Is this true?

[Anonymous]

My understanding (from what schools post to their webpages) is that the schools assign a potential income to the non-working spouse and add this number to the family income. This new, larger number is used to calculate eligibility. Unless there's a good reason for one parent to be home (small children, etc), the assumption is that the non-working parent can elect to work.

There are also statements about hobby businesses, quitting work to start a business, etc. being treated in a similar way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just played around with the SSS form, because my sense was that we make too much to qualify for aid, but we were having a hard time figuring out how to responsibly budget for our favorite school. I have a low-cost house (under 200k) and income at about 200k. One kid. However, student loan debt and consumer debts are high, and we're just a few years out of school so we haven't had a chance to get out in front of these debts. So, our income is high but we're encumbered more than we'd like and just beginning with savings / retirement.

Bad news for me: The SSS analysis came back saying we can pay about 38k in their estimation -- which is a lot more than I feel comfortable budgeting. I have no idea if restructuring the debt would change the SSS analysis (it might give us some more liquidity, to get closer to the mark), or if explaining that the consumer debt is related to projects on the fixer-upper house would meet with some sympathy. But I suspect that the disjuncture between the estimate and what I feel I can wisely pay is simply a sign that we're not financially prepared, at least not yet. We'll probably just go to ground and work on the debt problem for a few years.

But maybe there's good news here for someone else: If you have two kids, or your house costs more, it seems possible that the SSS formula (and the related ones) will see you has having some demonstrated need.

This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't really understand giving FA to people because they have consumer debt. A mortgage is different. We have one in private and 2 in public. Zero debt except for mortgage, $150 income and we get $7000 in FA. We truly can't pay that bill without grandparent help. If we made another $50k, most of that could go towards school and we'd be golden. We don't expect FA to supplement our lifestyle. We expect to make sacrifices to pay our bill. No fancy cars, small house, only very basic vacations (we drive to the beach), etc.

We are so grateful for any FA we receive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just played around with the SSS form, because my sense was that we make too much to qualify for aid, but we were having a hard time figuring out how to responsibly budget for our favorite school. I have a low-cost house (under 200k) and income at about 200k. One kid. However, student loan debt and consumer debts are high, and we're just a few years out of school so we haven't had a chance to get out in front of these debts. So, our income is high but we're encumbered more than we'd like and just beginning with savings / retirement.

Bad news for me: The SSS analysis came back saying we can pay about 38k in their estimation -- which is a lot more than I feel comfortable budgeting. I have no idea if restructuring the debt would change the SSS analysis (it might give us some more liquidity, to get closer to the mark), or if explaining that the consumer debt is related to projects on the fixer-upper house would meet with some sympathy. But I suspect that the disjuncture between the estimate and what I feel I can wisely pay is simply a sign that we're not financially prepared, at least not yet. We'll probably just go to ground and work on the debt problem for a few years.

But maybe there's good news here for someone else: If you have two kids, or your house costs more, it seems possible that the SSS formula (and the related ones) will see you has having some demonstrated need.

This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't really understand giving FA to people because they have consumer debt. A mortgage is different. We have one in private and 2 in public. Zero debt except for mortgage, $150 income and we get $7000 in FA. We truly can't pay that bill without grandparent help. If we made another $50k, most of that could go towards school and we'd be golden. We don't expect FA to supplement our lifestyle. We expect to make sacrifices to pay our bill. No fancy cars, small house, only very basic vacations (we drive to the beach), etc.

We are so grateful for any FA we receive.

You should be even more grateful for the grandparents covering your bills. If FA aid is structured that families need family help, underprivileged kids are again left in the cold.