Darkage1

UC Irvine, I only receive $11,000 in aid and most of it is plus loans that rip me off....have to pay $12,000 a year and my friend who makes 10,000 less a year than I, ($60,000) so he claims but he has made more than me in the past...(I guess one thing came up or something in the housing industry, but that, still, is a big decline.)... Anyways, he only has to pay 2,500 a year and he gets the perkins loans and all sorts of extra ****...I just think it's unfair

bayou mama

It's so depressing. My D got into Rice and Kenyon, with a merit scholarship to Kenyon that they said goes to the top 10-15% of their students, but we can't afford either school. (Rice gave zero dollars.) We make <$130,000, with three other kids. Our EFC is $56,000. There is just no way that we can justify draining all our savings. We are getting too old, and the 401K can and does change for the worse at times. We are waiting to hear about a merit scholarship (Renaissance Scholarship) from the University of Rochester, but if that doesn't come through, she may end up at LSU.

emmabelle

Uggh, this is so stressful

UMASS Amherst offered our son a $10,000 merit scholarship and $3500 loan, great deal! (18,000 for in state tuition)

Boston College, where he really wants to go will probably offer us nothing. It's just sad. I'd be happy if they would offer us $13,500.

Our EFC was ridiculously high $57,000, my husband had to sell stock options that were going to expire, but instead of putting the money away for college, he bought a car. So the money's gone, but it looks like we made a ton of money this year. I can't begrudge him, he works 60 hours a week, I guess he can't give up everything he wants for our son's college career.

Skramata

Cornell so far has been the only school whose Parents' Contribution equaled the EFC that my family calculated using CollegeBoard & the CSS Profile. Columbia and Johns Hopkins missed it by 10K+. My father is Mightily Pi$$ed Off.

stupidkid

Ok, Caltech officially sucks. I've gotten more from every other school...including Cornell, Duke, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon, etc...that's really pathetic.

HandsAcrossTime

UChicago. I realllly love this school, too, but it's finaid is 7k less than Princeton's.

My contributions (including parent's and work study)
Pton - 2k
Chicago - 9k

9k may not seem like a lot...but it is to me. Our family has an income of 40k, one sibling in college, no health insurance, etc. My parents won't be paying a dime for college for me, and I don't want to graduate with 36k in loans.

MomOf3Stars

Handsacrosstime, you are very lucky. Those are really good offers. Our AGI is less than yours and at the 4 schools my D was accepted to her EFC per year ranges from $5000 (state school) to $23K (NYU). We cannot afford to pay any of that for her so it will fall to her to take out loans which means that she will probably have to go to the State school as she realizes that graduating with almost $100K in debt would be financial suicide.

I appreciate your not wanting to go into any debt for school but it is just not feasible in this day and age. Think of it this way, knowing you are paying for this education in some way (even if it is in the future) will make you work harder and appreciate it more than if you had been given a free ride. A lot of people in worse financial situations have gotten less money so I say take whichever of the schools you feel most comfortable at.

iHojs2

I guess I should be pretty grateful here, given some of the posts. I got the best package from UPenn. I'm still surprised by that, but very pleased.

Worse package was from Wash U, would require me to borrow over 33K per year, still they did offer a good chunk which were mostly free scholarships and grants.

All the rest were in between. Cornell and Lehigh's were good, for both of those respective schools, but still talking cha-ching in loans. Applied to mostly specialized programs. Wonder if that changes anything?

arachnophobia12

my best package is from Pitt, but my worst is from Penn State (or maybe NYU)...

Linnlew

Indiana University!

Michina20

Penn State by far is the worst for financial assistance. Though, they claim to help out, I yet wonder when they will start accessing all the students in a need to basis. Penn State has one of the best global alumni contributions society that should take some of the money and give them to the students.

In any event, our EFC is 3304.

My daughter only qualify for $ 1400 of a grant and $3500 on loans... Tuition and room and board is of $27,000.00 per year..... I have no idea how this happened. The people at the fin aid dept told me to deal with it.... that's a great attitude if you asked me.

She is an AOS student, however, since we have to recreate their lives there and are helping with the economyof the state, shouldn't they at least get some sore of break???

baker101460

me too texasmama and kryptoniteman!!!

citrusbelt

Pay off all consumer debt (credit cards), save some for college if it is at all possible, have the student save 70% of summer job earnings and owe nothing for cars. Live on a cash basis and you should be able to make your efc. We learned this through having three go to school. With this last one we were able to meet all of the above, our efc was spot on and the college offers (save one that was way off-odd) were very accurate and #3 will need no loans. This is a change from #1 who had to rely on merit, not need aid. It is only our families experience, but I wanted to offer it. Now, if I can just keep this car limping along for four years.

swimcatsmom

I hear you there!! Mine has nearly 180,000 miles on it, my husbands truck has about 250k (not that we drive that if we can avoid it with deisel the price it is) and my daughters is held together with bunjee cords and rope!! (well the trunk was held closed by a bunjee cords and you pull on a piece of string to open the hood). 3 more years before we can think of getting something newer. Just please let the Ac be an easy(read cheap) fix - driving in the summer here with no AC is unbearable!!

sueinphilly

Please include my 1991 Honda in your car prayers. And include my house's roof and heating/ac also.

Another sad part is that I have six weeks vacation/comp time to use this year and a budget of 0 for 'fun' for me. Actually anything that isn't a necessity is considered off limits in my budget.