An important concept I need to understand

smog
Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:28:55 +0000

much of my information is pre-recession, so carefully read each school’s current FA policies. but as a general answer, averages at the Ivy League schools may be misleading. About half the students get no FA, and my informal survey of cars at several parent weekends would indicate about half of that 50% are well enough off that they just write checks for tuition, and their loans at graduation are zero. The there’s the 10-20% neediest students who get FA through grants not loans. Most schools require that he first few thousand dollars of the EFC come from the student, and the school generally arranges on-campus jobs to provide those funds. so, you should ask if that $20K average is the average for all grads, or just the subset that actually have loans.