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Old 03-28-2008, 11:55 AM   #100
barkowitz
College Rep
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 247
Quote:
MIT, my parents are middle class and my expected STUDENT contribution is well over 10k, almost as much as my parents'. It's ridiculous.
As Director of Financial Aid at MIT, let me say that the only two reasons a student may have a Student Contribution higher than our standard (which for Freshmen this year is $1900). Since I don't know who the individual is who posted, I cannot comment on which of these caused her/his Student Contribution to exceed our $1900 standard:

1) The student has earnings which are extremely high on his/her own. While typical student earnings (in the range of up to $5000 or so) will not cause an EFC, if a student earns greater than $9000 or $10,000 in the year prior to their arrival, we may expect a higher contribution. To get to the $10,000 level, the earnings from the past year would have to be at least $25,000 (which seems unlikely).

2) The student has (in his or her own name) a trust fund. In most cases, we treat student assets as family assets and include them in our EFC at a rate of somewhere usually between 3 and 5%. If the student has a trust fund, however, we do treat these assets as specifically student assets and assess a much higher annual rate on these assets.

So you are aware, we do hear appeals on this issue, so red remote, please be in touch with us.
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