Aid Estimates - include work study?

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>So I got my aid estimate today. I have a question, do grants include work study and summer employment? Or are they simply money that you get without working?</p>

2

<p>Grants do not include work study or summer employment. That’s the money they give you.</p>

3

<p>thanks, omg are you serious!! this must be the best day of my life… :D</p>

4

<p>How did you get your estimate…is it on the account online or do we have to wait for snail mail?</p>

5

<p>we get them in the mail. It should come this week.</p>

6

<p>got one today. hope it will be better on the final one…</p>

7

<p>That is how I understand it. From what I remember, if they assign you work study, they’ll actually include it as a separate section on the estimate. I would dig out my old forms to check, but things have been moved around in my absence so I can’t double-check. =|</p>

<p>In any case, congrats on your acceptances and good luck with the FA office, guys! The estimate shouldn’t be too different from the actual package.</p>

8

<p>My estimated package is pretty much unaffordable, so I hope it gets better in the spring :(</p>

9

<p>If you are eligible for the following forms of financial aid, they will be listed independently on your financial aid estimate:</p>

<p>-University of Chicago Gift Aid
-Odyssey Scholarship
-Work-Study
-Pell Grant
-FSEOG (right?) Grant
-Stafford Loan
-Summer Employment
-Savings (this might be combined with Sum.Emp… can’t recall)
-(other grants and scholarship will be listed individually)</p>

<p>There may also be other aspects I’m unfamiliar with. I was fortunate enough to receive an aid package without private loans, so I’m not sure how those will be listed. Also, I don’t have a college saving fund or anything, so I’m unsure about those. </p>

<p>Gift Aid is just that, Gift Aid. If you don’t have Work-Study on your financial aid offering, they your family income disqualified you, or your received a scholarship that disqualified you.</p>

10

<p>yeah my package comes to a nice big 0$ of help. </p>

<p>Thanks U of C, too bad I can’t go to your school anymore!</p>

11

<p>hmm… i got a pretty good estimate… a little more than half!</p>

12

<p>No, they do not include work study.
Off-topic: I GOT APPROXIMATELY $47, 000 IN ESTIMATED AID!!!</p>

13

<p>I wonder how all of you guys got so little aid… like HonorsCentaur, I got about 45,000 in grant money… so that’s why I was wondering about the work study being included in the grant, now I can pay it off some other way!!</p>

14

<p>^^^congrats! I was like “HOLY F&#*” when I saw the initial $40, 000 along with a few other grants. Incredible. Really, incredible. Prestigious private education at Public price? hell yes.</p>

15

<p>So how do the stafford and perkins loans work. Like, what if my parents just want to pay off the loans immediately so we won’t have to pay interest? Is that an option, or will they wonder why we have the money to spare?</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>If you end up attending, what the FA office will do is email you about whether or not you want to accept the loans. You email them back saying, “No,” and they’ll add the amount owed to your account, and you . . . just pay. Not much hassle, quite simple.</p>

17

<p>The interest on Perkins loans is subsidized by the gov’t – no interest accrues til after graduation. If you have a subsidized Stafford, same thing. Unsubsidized Staffords accrue interest while you are in school. S pays the interest quarterly or whenever he has money in his account and remembers to do it. He doesn’t have to repay principal on the unsib Stafford til 6 mo. after graduation.</p>

18

<p>Can any current students or parents speak about the general accuracy of these financial aid estimates? I’d really like to accept my place in the c/o 2014, but I don’t want to be blindsided by my actual aid package come April.</p>

19

<p>@ dlee93:</p>

<p>From my experience, if the information and estimates you submitted are accurate and match the other forms (i.e. tax returns, etc.) you submit later, the estimate will be remarkably close to your actual package. Mine was the same, except for a difference of maybe $200.</p>

20

<p>The initial estimate was fairly close to my final package, although I did expect my Pell grant to count as extra money toward my tuition. It didn’t: the university takes away from your grants whenever you get a Pell grant (although it’s worth noting that private scholarships will count as extra money toward your tuition up to a certain limit).</p>