<p>I have twin sons who will be seniors in HS next year. Very solid Students with 3.95, 32 ACT, AP calc et, etc.</p>
<p>I have done a simulated FAFSA and I am expected to pay about 19K in college costs, or about 9K each. Which is about what I budgeted for actually.</p>
<p>Is it reasonable to expect the college they choose to pick up the rest of the tab and all of the unmet need in a financial aid package? I want them to finish the BS degree with 20K or less debt. </p>
<p>Their lists include top 50 type engineernig schools both public and private. Examples would be Northwestern, Univ of Washington, USC, and the Univ of Colorado. The Ivy league and East Coast holds no interest for them.</p>
<p>As I look at those tuition costs I wonder what the financial aid packages will be like.</p>
<p>One thing you can do is see whether the schools they are considering pledge to meet 100% of need. Some do, some don’t.</p>
<p>You can also study the Schools Known for Good Merit Aid thread - among other sources - for schools which represent the intersection of: Schools your kid(s) would like to attend/Schools which offer merit aid to kids with their stats</p>
<p>Then, in planning their application lists with them, you can stratify by reach/match/safety for admissions and reach/match/safety financially. You need financial as well as admissions safeties - and these need to be schools your boys would like to attend.</p>
<p>Financial packages can be all shapes and flavors–consisting of different amounts of work study, grants, and loans (kids and parents). A college may “meet 100% financial need”, but it may include more loans than grants. I agree with Mini–you won’t know until you see the different packages and then weigh them. Just make sure that your kids apply to enough colleges to be able to compare packages.</p>
<p>Also schools may count on the kids to work summers and use the $$ for school–so aid may be decreased by a designated amount.</p>
<p>Additionally, one school DS applied to this year meets around 92% of need. However, when the package came they tacked another 4500 that they felt S was responsible for on top of the EFC! To me EFC means just that-“family contribution” which would include son’s loans and some $ from his summer employment, if he earned enough. No, they are not sheltering any $ from summer employment and are expecting another 4500 from him on top of the efc! That was too much for us to pay and we just said no that school. You just cannot go by the % of need met, and breakdown of grant/loans either. Bottom line, until you see the package nobody really knows what will be offered.</p>
<p>Unlike northeastmom, I have a different understanding of EFC. I don’t believe EFC includes the student’s contribution(actually I think when I did the financial aid calculators at the Collegeboard site - I think they were clear in showing a student contribution but it was a while ago that I did that). For all the schools my son received a financial aid offer from, the package was split between family(parents) and the student’s contribution. For our family, the family contribution was split between custodial & non-custodial(except the schools that don’t look to the non-custodial parent for support). The student’s contribution was split between grants, loans & work (both summer work & work study). And one school (the school he decided to attend) also included a contribution from his savings. While he’s top two choices picked up all the financial need, one of the schools, RPI did not (it was short by about $15,000). It was interesting to see that his top two choices split the financial aid package differently - with one school he would have had zero loans, but they looked to the parents for more, with the other he will have student loans. In the end, he choose the school which is looking to him for more both in terms of loans and money from his savings - but it was the school of his dreams.</p>
<p>I believed this also until I read the articles about Harvard’s new financial aid initiative. I hadn’t realized until then that students were expected to cough up a certain amount of money in addition to the family EFC.</p>
<p>One of the changes in Harvard policy was that kids were now allowed to use scholarship $$ to take care of the student FC.</p>
<p>If you use the College Board financial aid calculator - their final result shows both family & student contributions. And it is important to look at how each school will apply any outside scholarships. From the various financial aid offices we talked to, outside scholarships are first applied to the student’s contribution (the student decides if the money will be deducted from work or loans), then the outside scholarships are applied to the schools contribution(grants, etc) and only after the student and the school’s balances are zero do any outside scholarships apply to the parent’s contribution. So it does seem fairly clear to me that the student’s contribution and the parent’s contribution are considered separately.<br>
I think its really important to talk to the financial aid offices before hand and then you will have some idea how any individual school handles student contribution/parent contribution/scholarships and any other specific family info that may affect your individual financial aid award. I know for our family, every school we applied to handled custodial and noncustodial parents differently - I did a lot of research before my son started applying in order to avoid any unpleasant surprises.</p>
<p>drizzit: have either of your sons looked at CWRU? They’re generous with merit aid, and upfront about the objective criteria applied for the different levels of support. I believe your sons might qualify for 3/4 or possibly even full tuition scholarships. At one time, A students with 1500 (old) SAT scores in the top 10 percent of their class did qualify for full tuition.</p>
<p>And Case is a great school for engineers! My d strongly considered it 5 years ago (for bio, not engineering). She liked lots about the school, including the campus, the location, and the facilities. I know that merit aid reduces need-based aid, but a large scholarship can bring the costs down enough to be affordable.</p>
<p>I always thought that EFC incorporated student responsibility. It was only this one school that met around 92% of need that shocked us b/c it was making our family pay more (4500 more in student responsibility). No other school did this. Bottom line is that if my efc were x dollars, this offer was going to run x dollars plus another 4500 for our family (whether more debt is over my son’s head or mine). The other bottom line is that we voted with our feet and my son is not attending this school.</p>
<p>It’s just incredible to see the differences from school to school. You really need to do your research, and choose a fair number in order to compare. There was even a difference with the schools who said they met 100% of demonstrated need. 2 schools that did that differed by $10,000 a year even tho they both incorporated the same categories - loans, work/study/grants. Another gave merit aid for full scholarship for 4 years. The offers were all over the board. $ was a significant reason for the school D chose. D is thrilled with her school and we haven’t had to break the bank, in fact, no loans!</p>
<p>Case has been sending them info and is on the possibilities list. They love to Ski with their free time so It was not real high at first glance due to location. Northwestern and USC have snuck in now and they are not Ski locations either so I see their list changing a bit. Case is still in the maybe pool. I think they are learning to broaden their pool a little beyond Skiing opportunities ;)</p>
<p>First picks were ski crazy colleges at Wyo, Utah, Nevada Reno, and Colorado. Since then the names are changing as they look closer at academic fits and we do campus visits. </p>
<p>Thanks to all who are reponding. Some good info here.</p>
<p>note that most schools, particularly the publics, have a self-help component, which includes summer earnings, work study and student loans, all of which is considered it the school’s finaid package adn meeting 100% of need. Depending on calculations, a student’s self-help could be $5-7k per year.</p>
<p>btw: USC is generous with merit aid for NMSFs.</p>
<p>As you can see by the above responses, colleges are highly variable in how they determine their award packages. This year, my daughter appled to mostly merit-based colleges and a few need-only colleges. Of course, she chose one of the need-only colleges, but we were able to negotiate a bit more by showing them an offer from a comparable need-only college.</p>