<p>Long story short, I have to take out at least $10,000 in loans/year to make up the difference in fees, etc for my attendance to college next fall as a freshman. Meaning I’ll end up with $40,000 in debt after I graduate with my BFA. With an ART degree.</p>
<p>This is a lot better than my first choice art school ($92,000 in debt anyone?) but is still hefty enough to make me shiver.</p>
<p>A BIG HOWEVER:</p>
<p>My EFC this year was extremely high ($40,000-ish)… which is ridiculously inaccurate. This is because my parents have $300,000+ in their assets in HOUSING MONEY in the bank. </p>
<p>However, they’re hoping to buy a house in Boston this fall… so all that money will go away and, hopefully, my EFC will be more accurate.</p>
<p>Can I look forward to a much better financial aid package for my sophomore year (and, thus, much less debt than I have predicted using my freshman financial aid package) or is that just wishful thinking? Do financial aid packages change dramatically between years if my parents’ financial situation changes?</p>
<p>PS: this is a side question: my brother and I are unfortunately 4 years apart… which means by the time my parents are finished paying for me, they have to start paying for him. They’re worried that the FAFSA won’t take into account that they’ve just finished paying 4 years worth of tuition for their first child and now have no money left because we’re not going to be enrolled in college at the same time… is there anywhere on FAFSA that takes this into account?</p>
<p>If this is a FAFSA only school, then home equity will not be considered (as long as the money is out of their accounts and into a home by the time you file FAFSA next year). Whether you’ll receive additional aid with the EFC drop is up to the school (and your new EFC, of couse). FAFSA doesn’t consider how many children they’ve previously put through school, only how many are in school concurrently.</p>
<p>*They’re worried that the FAFSA won’t take into account that they’ve just finished paying 4 years worth of tuition for their first child and now have no money left because we’re not going to be enrolled in college at the same time… is there anywhere on FAFSA that takes this into account? *</p>
<p>the fact that your parents won’t have any money left in savings will be what gets taken into account. If your parents are going thru savings to pay for your college, that savings won’t be there to declare on your sibling’s FAFSA.</p>
<p>However, have your parents understand, that unless your sibling has high stats, chances are that he won’t get an FA package that is going to cover a lot of “need.” Many FA packages have large loans or gaps in them - regardless of EFC.</p>
<p>If your parents are concerned about paying for the younger sibling, then the best advice is for that sibling to get the best grades possible, get high test scores, and get a big merit scholarship. If that is not a reasonable expectation for the child, then perhaps he’ll need to go to the local state school and commute or start a community college.</p>
<p>BTW…borrowing $40k for an ART degree is a VERY bad idea.</p>
<p>Why don’t you recalculate your FAFSA (using the estimator) as if your parents have purchased the house, and see if it indicates that you’ll be eligible for any federal grants. Once things are a little quieter, the FA office may be able to tell you approximately how it might look with that arrangement next year. Some schools don’t offer a lot of grant aid, which is what you’re really looking for in future years. A school that offers to meet your need with a lower EFC next year by increasing your loans and suggesting that your parents get PLUS loans isn’t going to help.</p>
<p>I’m also of the opinion that $40K in debt for an art degree is a very bad idea. Most of the twenty or thirty somethings I’ve met with art degrees are struggling to get by waiting tables, being a barrista, working for caterers,… while they struggle to get time to work on their art and try and sell it. It seems to be hard enough for them to earn enough to live on, much less pay off student loans. The market for art teachers is also terrible, and not likely to improve any time soon. The only ones I’ve met who are really making a go of it gave up full-time art to pursue a completely different career, and who perhaps still do some art on the side. (That’s not terrible, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be viable for many who are driven to be artists.) </p>
<p>Art and theatre are two areas where I would be hesitant to take on much of any debt at all.</p>
<p>Hmm, I did hear that financial aid packages nowadays are mostly loans… so this is true? That’s actually pretty worrying… my parents have saved up enough to pay for $20k/year for me to attend school (which is good for in-state, but because they’re moving back to Boston my in-state status to a state school will be under question) but I don’t know about my brother.</p>
<p>I myself have really good stats (high GPA and SAT, lots of national honors in academics) but received mediocre scholarships and financial aid packages all around this year, so I’m not sure if it helps much? Though the scholarships I did receive are all based on my grades. The school I am going to be attending is well known to be pretty gracious to incoming students but I haven’t heard much about how it treats finaid packages for returning students</p>
<p>As for the art degree: the specific degree I’m heading towards is illustration with either a concentration in animation, design or humanities. I plan to work as a design-type artist in the industry rather than a fine artist, especially in either animation or gaming… though I know the market for both sides of are pretty shoddy, especially in this economy. I don’t really know where exactly I’ll end up in the future, but I’ve tried to tailor my career expectations to areas I know where art careers are being successful.</p>
<p>But truthfully, $40k in loans scare me too. That’s why I’m trying to see if the lowering EFC would help me out (or if I should continue searching for more scholarships like mad… though my success at this has been $0).</p>
<p>Zhriffix – those animation jobs are hard to come by, and I know a couple of kids who graduated from art school (not Cal Arts) with a major in animation – only one is employed in art, and she is doing more graphic design with a tiny bit of animation. Tough, tough area in which to find work unless your school has some tremendous recent record of graduates getting employment in the field within a year of graduation.</p>
<p>The Cal Arts grad I know has been fully employed in animation since he graduated, and now he directs and produces an animated TV show. I understand that they have a ridiculously good alumni network, but I also understand that they’re a ridiculously hard school to get into.</p>
<p>I’m not looking to go into animation primarily, but into illustration (story-board/concept-art for both animation and film or in gaming) which is a broader field… but I know it’s a tough area. That’s why I’m not really sure what to sacrifice. Since I’m only looking to get an undergraduate degree, I feel that picking my undergraduate school is more important than my friends who are planning to get into medical schools. </p>
<p>CalArts and other California schools were out of the question for me. My parent’s one request is that I stay on the east coast… which is a shame since a lot of the best entertainment/concept illustration schools are in the west. </p>
<p>But I don’t really feel like I have a lot of options.</p>
<p>I was accepted to a state school for design that is at the moment fully payable. The problem is that it’s the furthest school away from my parents (yes, I do prefer to stay closer to home), I don’t much like the area, and it has weak programs in other non-art majors I am interested in. And, again, I’m not sure how residency status works here. North Carolina is notoriously picky for it, I think (probably because of UNC Chapel Hill… which I was also accepted into). The difference between OOS tuition and IS tuition is shocking.</p>