| Sybbie, I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself, I knew all the things that you posted.
My dismay comes from the gap between aid and demonstrated need. And yes, I knew there WAS a gap, but until we get the aid letters, it's hard to know how big the gap is going to be. I am disappointed because for me, I'm getting the most aid this year (since this year I have three in college), so I'm looking at the numbers and thinking, whoa, if this is what it looks like now, next year is going to be much worse...
From the posts i've seen, it appears that many parents are in the same boat of being disappointed with the size of the gap. And forewarned is Not forearmed in this situation because we all (of course) hope that our situation will warrant a little more. I think that's just human nature. I haven't found the aid calculators to be all that useful, so I've just sat back and waited to see what is going to happen for MY child, in MY situation.
Also, I've seen a bunch of posts saying (I paraphrase) that parents are all whining that their EFC is too high. Again, speaking only for myself, I was VERY happy with the EFC. I would be thrilled to pay the amount of the EFC and be done with it. I would be thrilled to pay a little more than that. I'm not thrilled to be paying three times the EFC.
And of course, the first aid letter is the worst. After that initial disappointment I'm looking at the reality of our situation and we'll sit down and crunch numbers and get it figured out.
I've also seen posts saying if you don't have enough money to get into the 'top tier' schools, apply to your state school. But as Thumper pointed out, they usually give the least amount of aid. So for people who have high EFC's and won't be getting much money anyway, it may be true that shelling out 80k for four years at the state school is better than shelling out 200k for four years at the private school, but for people whose EFC is lower, they may do better at the wealthier private schools. And even high EFC people might do better if their child gets merit aid. But all of those things are *mostly* unknowns until you actually go through the process. You can make projections, but until the letters are in your hands, you're not sure.
So I expect that if you went back ten years, you'd see the exact same postings every March/April. Some people who are thrilled with their aid packages, lots of people who are disappointed, some who are completely in the dark, and some who are angry. But mostly people who are disappointed, because they've DONE the reading, worked on spreadsheets, etc, and still found that the system didn't give them what they were HOPING for. And maybe the hope is unrealistic, but I think the process is a lot more complicated than just having a basic understanding of how financial aid works. |