hi all! by some miracle, cornell decided they want me. i am peachy keen on enrolling, but there’s one issue: the CoA is estimated to be around 92k/year, and there is no world in which i’d feel comfortable trying to pay that much.
in my case, the cost is primarily driven up by my family’s investments; our AGI is roughly 197k, and our yearly income after taxes is approximately 161k. we’re also still paying off our mortgage.
unfortunately for cornell, i’m truly an insufferable mock trial kid at heart; i intend fully to appeal my aid offer. i will do whatever it takes to drive this stupid cost down.
What is your budget? What number could Cornell get to that would be affordable for your family?
Has anything changed with your parents’ income/assets since you applied for financial aid? In addition to running the net price calculator to get a cost estimate, did you file FAFSA and CSS Profile by Cornell’s deadlines?
Are your parents divorced, or do they own a business and/or real estate beyond a primary home?
Once we know these answers, posters can best help you with possible appeal
Most have a mortgage. $197K salary will not likely put you in a good position. They don’t seem to have a - if you earn less than, you get free $$, etc.
The net price calculators are there for a reason. You should have checked before you bothered applying.
It’s 2026 so 5 years later but in 2020 (ahead of the 2021 hs graduating class), I called Cornell to find out if my student would qualify for need aid.
They stated if you had $1 million in assets (that includes home equity), that you would not qualify for any - so salary is just one part. Most making $197K will have substantial equity.
I don’t know what # you need to get to (or will get to) but run the NPC. I assume it shows you full pay.
Given you said COA is $92K, I’m assuming you got nothing.
That’s not their problem. What is your basis to appeal - because that isn’t it. That you have a mortgage isn’t it.
So I would move on. You have zero chance to win an appeal - at least based on what you’re sharing.
It is not the only school in the world.
Do what you should have done up front knowing Cornell has no merit aid.
Find a school you can afford and/or would feel comfortable paying for.
At least in my experience the university seems to think that you can liquidate your investments to pay for university (at least for investments that are not in official retirement funds).
As an older parent who hit retirement age while my oldest was in university, and before my youngest even started university, from a financial point of view this seemed like a bad idea. When you are already retired, money sitting in a mutual fund looks a lot like retirement funds, even if the university thinks that it is education funds.
Our kids just went somewhere else and got a great education. Then they went on to very good graduate programs. To me this is just Cornell’s loss (but I am sure that they will get over it).
Cornell is a great university. It has a very strong program in what one daughter majored in (veterinary medicine). There are lots of other great schools.
OP- as the others have pointed out, “I don’t feel comfortable paying” is not a grounds for a successful appeal.
Here’s what MIGHT work.
1- Change in circumstances. Parent lost job, will likely take a while to find another.
2- Act of god- hurricane blew down your house, the FEMA payment will not cover what it is costing your family to live in temporary housing.
3- Massive fraud inflicted on your family. Between the time that you applied and the time you were accepted, your parents discovered that their broker had invested them in a Ponzi scheme which has now had its assets frozen. If there is anything to recover, it will be in three years after a lawsuit and will be pennies on the dollar.
See where I’m going with this? As a debater, you’ll understand that the argument “I don’t want to pay what your college costs” is a weak one. Did you apply for aid initially and got zero???
How will you do that?
Did you and your parents know the price before you applied?
The problem is that you want a discount, but the school didn’t say it would offer one.
Most families have bills to pay.
The university has bills as well.
If you didn’t check the full price before you applied, you cannot expect them to change it for you unless something was drastically missing from your finances.
That you got nothing in aid from Cornell suggests that your family has a lot of non-retirement investments. They are unlikely to give you aid just because you don’t like the price.
I dont understand what you mean by “unfortunately for Cornell”. You have no leverage. There are thousands of high achieving kids who would excel there.
You were selected so congratulations on your accomplishments but there are many other kids who are similiarly qualified.
I have heard it said that highly ranked famous universities such as Cornell could take their entire incoming freshman class, move it aside, and select an entire additional incoming freshman class from the rejected students with just as high academic credentials.
But then I have also heard it said that if you consider students that has been accepted to Harvard or Cornell, and send them to U.Mass or a SUNY instead, then do just as well in life as the students who actually graduate from Harvard or Cornell. This of course implies that the average high success rate of students who graduate from Harvard and Cornell is largely based on the consistent academic strength and work habits of the students that they accept in the first place.
In the cases that I am familiar with, “drive this stupid cost down” has implied going to different university somewhere else. However, in the cases that I am familiar with, the student has done very, very well somewhere else (eg, two are now MDs, another is currently getting a PhD at a highly ranked private university that would never have been affordable for the student when they were an undergrad – fortunately STEM PhD’s are typically fully funded so the cost of education does not come up at that point).
And a strong level of determination is one feature that makes it relatively likely that a person will eventually be successful in life, one way or another.
PXE - It seems you and your family should have used the NetPrice calculator. Did you apply for any scholarships?
If Cornell is showing that you a receiving no grant aid, the scholarships would help you to lower the price. That is probably your most realistic option. They do not match offers from other schools or anything.