Elon Fin Aid Experiences

nydancemom
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:14:56 +0000

D is a junior. Elon was her first choice school, and for her program it is one of the best in the country, so we sent her. Yes, Elon’s tuition is reasonable compared to other privates, but honestly their financial aid is rather dismal. Our D received the maximum Presidential scholarship as an entering freshman, but that was only $3750 at the time, and it does NOT increase each year as the tuition does. Her department does not offer any scholarships except to a couple of incoming freshman and she did not get one of those. Once there, despite a 3.8+ GPA, there is NO availability of a departmental scholarship. Athletic money is separate, and she’s not an athlete, so nothing there either. We sent our D with the understanding that she would receive more aid the next year when her younger sister started college. Our EFC would then be cut in half. Well when the financial aid package came for sophomore year, her aid had gone up less than the increase for tuition, room and board, so we were actually further behind, even though we now had two kids in college! After many phone calls, all the way to a VP in the fin. aid dept, they raised her grant about 3 grand, but it has been a struggle every year and the gap between EFC and actual cost is big and ugly! We (both our D with Stafford loans and us with PLUS loans) have had to borrow quite abit to keep her there. Despite this, it is a wonderful school, her program is everything we had hoped for with excellent training, and the people in the fin. aid department have honestly tried very hard to do the best they could. They just have a very small endowment and with more and more folks needing more and more aid with this economy, it is difficult for them to provide the aid that they would LIKE to.