There are also merit awards that are lost because of gpa and those funds are not replaced with need based aid. I know the OP is asking about a ‘meets full need’ school, but that can still be an issue.
My motto was ‘I don’t care what the aid is called, just keep it coming’ but it really does matter. My D’s merit award was set the first year and didn’t go up as tuition went up (and up and up). Tuition had gone up almost $10k since the first year we looked at the cost (senior year in hs) and the time she graduated. No adjustment to aid, except Pell went up about $300/yr. Is it a drop in FA? No, but my pockets still felt the pain.
I disagree that financial aid officers are uncaring. It is not the aid officer who makes the rules; they just get stuck applying the rules. It may not even be the aid director who is to blame. If the president of the school and/or the board of governors cuts the aid budget, aid gets cut … no matter how much the folks working in the aid office wish it were otherwise, they must do what they are told to do. Aid policy is not set by the rank & file (they just get the blame).
That said, I think it’s wrong to reduce aid for upperclassmen, if that is what happened (we don’t know the details so can’t say for sure). I firmly believe the first responsibility of the school is to take care of current students & make sure they can graduate. That may mean cutting aid to incoming students, though, which is not something that is likely to play well with the need to fill a class. As a financial aid professional, I would choose aid to returning students … the folks running the place at the top may feel the pressure to choose otherwise. Which is why I don’t have the desire to be the top banana.
Very sadly, I have dealt with financial aid offices where if the director and staff cared, they did not have procedures in place to address any numbers of issues they should have. They were not competent in a number of things. I thought the attitude was extremely deficient until they realized that i was going to cause a huge problem because I had researched the situation and they were at fault.
These were at some very fine schools with high ratings from the students.
My SIL worked for a full needs met school and had nothing good to say about her coworkers. I think (hope) the school is doing better in that department.
I am not saying every financial aid office or officer fits under this horrible umbrella but sadly,that’s been my experience. I do not believe they all do,but I’ve had atrocious experiences. What’s sad, is that I’ve walked in there as an advocate for there, so not much emotional involved. They have been wrong 100% of the time in my dealings with them.
However, one cannot go by the media stories or anecdotes. One of the U of Rochester links, clearly states that a parent took an extra job which brought additional income to that family. Of course that would reduce financial aid! More income=less aid, most of the time.
And absolutely, it is possible that aid can be reduced by 60% or can be lost altogether if income/assets, family situation are such that a student loses eligibility!
My friend’s daughter lost a lot of her aid, and there were reasons for every cent lost. But the school sent the letter late, very late and no explanation. Nothing. Not a word for $45k in aid lost replaced by a suggestion to get loans. Unbelievable to me. The first year award letter didn’t explain things either. Like that one of the line items was a merit award. The aid officer didn’t get it either at first. It was unbelievable to me And yes, it was unfortunately appropriate the student lost the aid. But no way the average parent or student was going to understand it, given the fin aid director had to research things, only after being prodded by a Dean.
Our income changed by a small amount due to a year end bonus. Didn’t align with the drastic drop in aid. No other changes to affect the FAFSA or CSS. Also doesn’t explain how colleges that are $20k cheaper awarded both merit and financial aid, as a late transfer no less. Also, one of the friends who transferred is at a very expensive peer institution, where she was awarded enough FA to make it affordable. It is also a meets full need school.
We’ve been very pleased with Susquehanna. They did not reduce my daughter’s aid at all, even though our income went up over the four years (yay for a good economy!).
@MaineLonghorn That is where d ended up attending. It’s been a tough couple of weeks settling in. She has made friends with some of the transfer students, though none in the dorms as of yet. The first dorm meeting was held during one of her classes. I’m assuming your d’s been very happy there. Please pm if you have any info you think might help my daughter. Thanks!
Each school defines what need, EFC, COA, merit awards are. Some do better at certain schools over others. Very few schools give most of their students full need met packages even by their own definitions.
What I find problematic is if a school is truly doing a bait and switch by having a richer formula freshman year than for future years. There should not be a huge difference in Financial aid package amounts if income, assets, and family situations are about the same. If freshman year packages have merit awards in them, it should be clearly stipulates if they have conditions. Communication should be there. A lot of time that is what is lacking.
Schools will be get hurt if they pull this bait and switch business because word gets out, and students will have to transfer. Debt amounts go up. All affect school rankings over time. I firmly believe that a part of UChicago’s and Vanderbilt’s rise in rating has to do with more generous financial aid.
We had wonderful responsiveness from my kids’ college FA reps. Always a timely answer and patient explanations. Aid $ stayed the same same ballpark over 4 years. It was generous.
I think the collective wisdom here hints at probable reasons these families got hit- something likely changed on the family side, plus maybe a tuition/RB increase and the std hgher student contribution and loan amounts, as the years pass. Or maybe a freshman merit award expired or the student no longer qualified.
But it would help if the college OP is worried about could be named. In the past, when parents asked about the possiblility FA could change, to their detriment, after freshman year, the responses were generally reassuring.
As for the notice coming so late, I have to wonder if the parents provided some vital info late and/or just how vanilla their finances were.
I have a friend whose DD is going to URI as an OOSer and she has been ever so pleased with the responses and interactions with the financial aid office. This is a state school, does not guarantee to meet need , but it communicated clearly with this family
When I visited the Hartt School, part of the University Of Hartford, I felt their financial aid presentation was outstanding and the fin Aid Officer clear, well spoken and welcoming. Again, not a school that guarantees to meet need, and often doesn’t.
Albright College, several years ago, guaranteed to meet full need, but did not extend the policy to current students when they started this. Many schools are not as generous to transfer students as they are to freshmen, and some schools that guarantee to meet full need do not include transfer students.
Where it can get messy is when merit and need are in a package. The FA office should be VERY clear about how those components work. A $5k freshman only merit award is a problem if the terms and effect on financial aid is not laid out.
@brantly - I’m glad you asked this question as I worry about this a lot. So far, with my daughter’s meets need LAC, the FA officers have been helpful and there was an appropriate increase in aid this year as my son is now in college. I think things will be ok for her as she will graduate in 2021, but I will definitely be worried until I see my son’s FA award for the next couple of years. His university is a bit more generous than hers but with changing income and my daughter graduating, I hope things will work out. Still, I would think that most schools that meet need and are fairly selective would be very interested in making sure their students graduate.
So … I guess the answer to my original question is, no, the colleges have no hard obligation to continue to make the school affordable after freshman year, even in a meets-full-need school.
No, I think it’s premature to assume this is about the college gaming FA. Have you considered calling the school and asking if you can expect a steady amount, assuming nothing (or little) changes?
To their minds, a MFN college IS making school affordable. It’s about their calculation of your need.
Over time, other posters have commented that a college isn’t re-inventing the wheel, each FA season. I just wouldn’t take a coupe of FB comments as certain- not at this point.
What I agree on is that we all worry terribly about this.
My experience over nearly 50 years in dealing with financial aid at colleges has been that colleges do not bait and switch as a practice. Yes, they CAN. There is no hard rule that says they absolutely have to use the exact same formula all years your student is there. In fact, as I mentioned in earlier posts, most schools do have it built into their formulas that a student assumes a bit more of the cost each year. Some colleges also have a portion of any cost increases passed onto even financial aid recipients. Also upper class men housing is sometimes pricier than the freshmen double room dorms
Those changes should not be huge, however. Though a friend of mine did get whammed when College of Charleston upped the OOS premium part of the tuition significantly. Unfortunately, things like this happen. Usually, schools make an effort to minimize policy changes’ effects to financial aid recipients as the affordability of a school can hinge on that.
It is self sabotage to bait and switch. Schools will lose upperclassmen which affects the graduation rate and ratings. Word gets out.
Schools that guarantee to meet full need almost always do so with a consistent formula with above exceptions and also the impact of moving from one category of income to another. FAFSA uses percentages from 20-40% of income after a protection allowance and if you are unlucky to move up into a higher percentage when you get additional that marginal hit can be high.
It’s a risk most of us take with that privilege that comes from picking a school unaffordable without aid. I strongly, very strongly urge everyone getting aid to understand every bit of the fin aid packages and to ask about future ramifications. Ask how they treat an additional kid in college. What if your additional kid in college quits? How are cost increases like tuition going up, pricier upper class housing treated? Any financial issue looming in the near future, you might want to inquire about effects on aid. Communication is key and that’s where I find fin aid officers lacking, as well as most uninformed parents and kids, so grateful to get that first year aid they don’t want to get into any questions about the future.
So at Illinois Wesleyan, Beloit and University of Michigan we have not had issues. They all claim if your wages are about the same the aid should be also. All schools increased aid with us doing nothing when tuition went up.
But I know there are schools that don’t guarantee aid past the freshman year. Can’t remember the names but it seemed like Lacs that my daughter was looking at like 5 years ago.
We made sure we asked every financial aid office this question. No sense just being able to afford one year…
Susquehanna is very generous, with merit and need based aid, even to transfers. Not every school is like that.
Also, don’t some schools like for example Northwestern have tiers of aid, like an income of up to a certain amount gets full need (as they define it) met, then above that less need is met?
You can get an idea of second year aid when you get the first year package. Those with students starting this year 2019-20 school year got aid packages based on 2017 income and assets on the day the FAFSA was filed. Most of us know what our 2018 income was at that time. Look at what those number are. It’s easy to forget next year. FIn aid income numbers run two years behind. It hurts if income is going down this year -2019 and your fin aid package doesn’t reflect it next school year because it goes in 2028 income.
You can see how there can be misunderstandings over how decreases happen.