<p>Okay, i need you guys to bare with me because i may be slightly confusing to my lack of sleep in the last three days:</p>
<p>I got my fin. aid packet from NYU today and i wanted to know if the loans and scholarship they gave me are supposed to match the cost of tuition? I’m really confused. Is it better to take out a PLUS loan with them or with a different bank? Financial aid is a mystery to me.</p>
<p>Well, your question is sort of oddly framed. Tuition is just the beginning of the financial black hole you face at NYU. There are also fees, room and board, transportation, personal expenses, and books and supplies. If you commute, according to NYU, that’s supposed to total nearly $42,000. If you live on campus, more than $52,000 (and the second figure includes nothing for travel to get you to and from campus).</p>
<p>So, subtract whatever aid they’ve offered you from the appropriate figure, and you’ll be left with the balance that you and your family is expected to cover.</p>
<p>You should have received a financial aid guide with your award. Read it. (Also at <a href=“Financial Aid and Scholarships”>www.nyu.edu/financial.aid/finaidguide.pdf</a> ) Go see your high school counselor; that office should have tons of information on your alternatives. NYU recommends you apply for loans through the NY Higher Education Services Corporation. You can visit them at <a href=“http://www.hesc.com%5B/url%5D”>www.hesc.com</a></p>
<p>Understanding financial aid is an incredibly complicated and time consuming business. You’re going to have to put the time in. While people’s advice on the board is likely to be good and well-intentioned, I would not rely on it, if I were in your shoes, since a mis-statement or lack of clarity could easily mislead you.</p>
<p>Okay now that I’m fully slept let me rephrase the question and state my situation.</p>
<p>When the awards state “suggested PLUS loans” what exactly does the “suggested” mean? </p>
<p>I have already read the information packet and they don’t really clarify.</p>
<p>My original question is…is the Total Awards price supposed to match the price of tuition? Is everyone supposed to get a loan that covers the other part of tuition? Would it be easier to take out a loan from my bank than a federal PLUS loan?</p>
<p>Marla, I wm not expert, but I do not think that most schools necessarily provide loans to match the <em>total</em> cost of your attending/tuition. From what I understand (and that’s probably not much!), schools use your parents’ FAFSA to figure out their Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which is how much (according to a formula) your parents are <em>supposed</em> to be able to pay. For most of us, there is a discrepancy between what our parents are supposed to pay and what it costs to go to the school. So schools will offer a combination of aids, loans, etc. to help bridge this gap. Does that make any sense?</p>
<p>Does financial aid cover the $1000 housing reservation fee?</p>
<p>Looking at my son’s financial aid package, it’s clear that NYU is trying to show how all the various sources of aid add up to the total cost of attendance. The PLUS loan is loan program for parents. It helps them close the gap between other aid, family contribution, and total cost of attendance. In that sense, I think the “Total Awards” sum is intended to add up to the total cost of attendance.</p>
<p>I believe the term “suggested” is intended to imply roughly the following: You need to find this much money to make up the difference between the aid we’ve provided to you (in the form of scholarships, grants, work-study, Stafford Loans and like) and the cost of attending NYU. If you don’t want to rob a bank to find that money, or persuade a local philanthropist to finance you, and each of your parents unreasonably refuses to take a third job or sell their house, your parents can apply for a PLUS loan in this amount.</p>
<p>So the “suggestion” is both an amount and the idea that a PLUS loan is one way parents can find the money, if they don’t have other alternatives. Easier to go to a local bank? Probably not, but you’d have to check with a few banks. The education loans are set up with public subsidies for students and parents and also guarantees that make them ironclad and highly profitable revenue lines for the financial industry (which means banks are positively eager to make the loans).</p>
<p>Will financial aid cover the $1,000 housing reservation fee? I don’t think so, at least not in any practical sense for most people. You’ll have to come up with the reservation fee (whatever it is) in the next couple of weeks. It could be considered part of the “expected family contribution.”</p>
<p>All of these questions are better answered by the NYU financial aid office. These schools will be happy to answer your questions. Honest. Once they’ve accepted you, they are eager to have you enroll. They will give you all the advice they can in an effort to have you register in the Fall – and they have heard every single question you can conceivably come up with.</p>
<p>well since my EFC 0 the 1000 housing fee is really unreasonable right now. I’ll call them monday.</p>