Great article on the woes of student loan debt for actors

[EmsDad]

@Notmath1 - if no chart for merit aid awards is available, I believe that you can come up with a reasonable estimate for merit aid for a school by doing the following:

1. Compare your student's stats to the admission stats for the school on College Data dot com or google to see if you can find the *Common Data Set Submission* for the school on their website. The degree to which your student is above the average stats for admission will give you a pretty good indicator that a merit aid award might be made.
2. To see what merit aid awards typically look like, look under the "Money Matters" tab on the College Data website entry for the school and scroll down to the section that says "Profile of 2016-17 Financial Aid" and look at the entry for "Merit-based Gift." That will tell you the average merit award typically received. If your student is well above the average admission stats, then your amount will likely be higher, and vice-versa.

For example, at Illinois Wesleyan, a fairly pricey private school with a solid MT program

Cost of attendance: $58,830

Merit-Based Gift (Freshmen): 135 (32.7%) of freshmen had no financial need and received merit aid, average amount $21,219

Average GPA: 3.75
ACT Score: 24% of students had ACT scores of 30-36.

My d had a GPA of 3.71(u)/4.23(w) and an ACT of 30. She received scholarships from IWU totaling $26,000 per year, which brought the price way down.

Another example - Belmont

Cost of attendance: $57,740

Merit-Based Gift: 1,446 (21.3%) of undergraduates had no financial need and received merit aid, average amount $7,561

Average GPA: 3.7
ACT: 19% of students had ACT scores of 30-36.

My d received scholarships totaling $7,000, the average amount.

Hence, for a student like my d, Illinois Wesleyan was much more affordable than Belmont and we knew that going into the process based on the available data.

No doubt others received more or less money than my d, but I think these examples are indicative.

A “wild card” in all of this are Talent Awards. Some MT departments are able to award fairly significant amounts of Talent scholarships which can greatly increase merit awards above the average amounts. If your student has the right combination of talent and type, you might receive a nominal or perhaps a substantial talent award. Of course, this is pretty much a total crapshoot when you are trying to estimate school costs at the beginning of your school search. Talent awards are typically substantially less than academic merit awards, but not always.

If you want to see an indicative comparison of merit aid for MT program schools, see this thread:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1745140-which-schools-give-the-best-merit-aid-another-freakonomics-post-p1.html

Some private schools are competitive with OOS public schools if you can qualify for merit or talent awards. It is pretty tough to beat in-state public school tuition.

Need-based financial aid is entirely different matter. You can get info on that from College Data dot com as well. Our EFC was way too high to qualify for any need-based aid.