This might be a stupid question, but when a college’s website says something like “average student award is $20,000”, is that the price the average student pays, or how much money they have taken off?
That is the amount of grants/scholarships (and sometimes even loans) the students receives. Means nothing as some students get $0 and another may get $40k to make the average $20k.
^^^^^ or “If Bill Gates walks into a room, on average everyone is a billionaire “.
It’s average aid not cost. It can be merit aid or need based aid. For high income parents merit is better, the lower the income the more need based aid can affect you. A university I know of often gives $20k and even $30k merit awards to good students. They can also be generous with need based aid. The thing is the COA is nearly $70,000 per year. Granted $40k or $50k per year is better than $70 but you need to look at the net cost for all 4 years. Unless you have the money a $5k scholarship on a $25k school is better for most people than a $20k scholarship on a $60k school. Don’t be flattered into something unaffordable.
Also be aware some schools raise their prices and then offer every (or most every) student a scholarship. People can get really wrapped up in seeing the largest scholarships their kids can get and lose sight of the actual net price, which is what matters.
There are some schools who are really stingy with scholarship $$, there are others who are labeled as stingy but really have a lower price point to begin with, so while they give less award $$ they might end up costing less overall.
What you want to focus on is Total Cost of Attendance (COA). And make sure you know how the school calculates that - some will play some games to make it seem less expensive. Some things to be aware of when figuring out total cost:
- Annual tuition
- How much tuition typically increases from year to year
- Are tuition costs higher for upperclassmen
- Are there costs for taking additional credit hours above the norm (often necessary in engineering)
- Health Care fees
- Art fees (if applicable)
- Student fees
- Lab fees (for STEM can be expensive, especially at the upper levels)
- Expected book costs (buying used and renting can help, but many books require electronic access codes for additional information/workbooks which makes it challenging)
- Room and board costs
- Room and board costs for upper level students (often housing quality improves as you progress - suites rather than dorms, apartments for seniors - and the price goes up accordingly. In some areas living off-campus can be cheaper, but many school have requirements that at least require living on-campus freshman year)
- Transportation costs
I’m sure there’s some I’m missing, but this is a starting point.
Totally agree with what @lvvcsf said - don’t look at how much of a discount the school is providing, look at how much the school will cost overall.
As noted above, every person’s situation is unique. The same college will have some students who are full pay and others who pay only a small amount. Things you can do to start to figure out your own situation include:
- Run the net price calculator for each college.
- Look carefully at the website to see if the school offers merit aid. If so look at what academic statistics are needed to qualify for that merit aid.
–Pay attention to if the merit aid is under a guaranteed program or if it is at the discretion of the college.
–If you are looking for discretionary merit aid consider some colleges where you academic stats are in the top quartile of students at the school.
Scolarships are given on natural prioritites. A teacher told me when i was doing admission of my younger brother to an other school that. But i don’t know what was that. And she gave me some back to school percent off coupons as a token of appreciation as i asked about the scolarships
They’re probably referring to the median award.
If they lined up all the awards from $0 to a full ride, that $20,000 would be the award given to the middle person in the line. It’s not by any means a promise or suggestion that you will be that middle person.
And it’s the amount of the award-- the money taken OFF the bill, not the amount left after the award.
When I read this thread title I thought “What? There’s an award for Average Students?” :-t
I think if they mean median award, they should say that. The OP asked about ‘average award.’ Average means add them all up and divide by the number you added.
No, mean, median and mode are ALL types of averages.
But let’s assume they do mean the mean.
If 25 kids qualify for financial aid, and 5 get $60,000 and the rest get $0, then the mean will be $12,000. Stinks if you’re not one of those 5, huh?