Estimated Award at NU

sybbie719
Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:26:42 +0000

Your Federal EFC, based on your filing the FAFSA in january, will be 0. Based on you having a 0 EFC (your EFC is not quite 0 but very very low) on the FAFSA, this is how they are estimating your Pell, SEOG, Work study and Illinois Map awards.

However NU uses the CSS profile to give their own institutional aid (pledge scholarship and NU scholarship), which will also has a self help component, part of why you were given a 7k EFC.

Your direct cost with attending NU (tuition, room board and fees) are $61640

The amount of financial aid that you are being given to meet those direct costs are $55, 619 ( do not count work study because you have not earned that money yet in addition money from work study is usually used for pocket money and to purchase sundry items- shampoo, laundry detergent, movie money). This means that you need to come up with $6,021 just to attend classes and sleep in the dorms. This part can be covered by your taking out the full direct loan amount of $5500 and getting a part time job. Keep in mind that all monies over the cost of tuition fees and books is taxable income to you.

However, there are still incidentals that still must be covered (so you really should be looking for a job now):

You must get to school and home for breaks (travel expenses)
You need book money (you must have it when you walk on campus, trying to go with out books until you get a work study job or get paid is a recipe for disaster)
You will be living in the dorms- you will need sheets, pillow cases, hangers and other sundry items associated with setting up a base dorm
You will need health insurance (based on your package one can assume that you may not have adequate health insurance and may need to purchase insurance from the school). you must have adequate health insurance from your parent’s employer to waive this requirement.

Overall, I do think that you have a very good package