<p>My EFC is 66005, making me illegible for FAFSA. Does anyone have knowledge about IU’s willingness to give out grants to OOS students like me?</p>
<p>I think you should expect to be offered an unsubsidized Stafford loan in addition to any merit aid you may already have been awarded.</p>
<p>If your EFC is greater than IUB’s cost of attendance (which yours is), then as hoosiermom said you will be offered Stafford unsubsidized loans only.</p>
<p>The amount of loans you will be offered and what is subsidized (meaning the interest payments on principal and interest is deferred) or unsubsized (meaning the payments aren’t deferred) varies depending upon how many units you have completed and whether you are a dependent or independent student, and your financial need.</p>
<p>This year, for dependent students with financial need–which is most students, the school will offer up to $3,500 in subsidized loans a year to freshmen, up to $4,500 subidized to sophomores, and up to $5,500 a year subsidized to juniors or seniors. (and you can go actually borrow up to $2,000 more than this each year, but they will not defer the interest on any loans over the $3,500/$4,500/$5,000 totals I mentioned). In your case, you will only be offered the unsubsidized loans for those with high EFCs (meaning $2,000 each year).</p>
<p>Go easy on loans if possible, though. While the interest rates are generally low (as low as 5.6% currently for subsidized and 6.8% for unsubsidized), you don’t want to graduate with a lot of debt. (This is not really a problem for you, since you won’t be able to go over $8,000 to $10,000–but I say this for others reading this note who might have financial need and are likely to want to borrow the maximum).</p>
<p>Calcruzer and All,</p>
<p>I am wondering if you can help with this case:</p>
<p>1) I have twin boys going to IU next year. The EFC is $13K each.
2) The boys might get some scholarship: $9K and $5K</p>
<p>How much subsidized loan can each receive?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>My understanding is that the subsidized amount of the loan would be the COA minus EFC minus scholarship amount up to a maximum of $3500.</p>
<p>hoosiermom,</p>
<p>Thanks. </p>
<p>Boy A ~ $0
Boy B ~ $3000.</p>
<p>I need to keep this as a secret for now since I just lose the leverage on them.</p>
<p>I unexpectedly met someone that works in the IU financial aid office today. I specifically asked about how IU determines need when a merit scholarship comes into the financial aid picture. From what this person said, IU subtracts the merit scholarship from the COA and then looks at any remaining need. Essentially what hoosiermom said.</p>
<p>ace550,</p>
<p>So far everything said is true–but keep in mind that if you have multiple students in college at the same time, then the EFC is not applied to each separately, but rather is used as a total contribution expected for the two students combined. This is easy to apply for the colleges if they both go to the same school. If they go to different schools, the two schools are supposed to split the EFC and then do the computation–but since the scholarships may differ (as in your case), then it may not be as easy to get the schools to recognize that the EFC needs to be reduced accordingly.</p>
<p>(Some parents argue that this is a good reason to try to get both students to go to the same school, while others argue that the computations can actually be to your benefit if one child gets a much larger scholarship than the other one–do the computations and you’ll see why).</p>
<p>Calcruzer and rrah,</p>
<p>Thanks for the details. That is very useful to know. I will need to look into it more in case they do get some scholarship.</p>