This situation highlights the need to be aware of net price while creating an application list, not something to check out after acceptances have arrived unless you will be happy to attend the ‘safety’ school you pick during applications - remembering that a SAFETY school is:
AFFORDABLE
YOU ARE BASICALLY GUARANTEED ENTRANCE (based on your stats)
YOU WOULD BE HAPPY TO ATTEND.
If your son is happy to go to the in-state option (or Utah) - that’s great and he will most probably have a very rewarding college experience. He can look at the acceptances that he received to unaffordable schools as validation that he will do well whenever he goes.
If you wanted/want more options available that are also ‘affordable’ (as you define it) - you can still have him apply to more schools - there are plenty which would cost less than 40k yearly that would be happy to have an applicant like your son. He may have to pick and choose what is most important to him, that’s what everyone on a budget has to do. The biggest issue (it seems) is location…as the schools on the list seem to be all in the Northwest.
If location is paramount, options are reduced, just the same as if budget is paramount. If you have both budget and location constraints - you will have fewer choices. If you want more choices, you will have to rethink your current parameters.
Your son will do just fine wherever he goes. That is the important thing to remember.
It was surprising then and now. My post wasn’t clear but I am talking about the same “discovery” when running a NPC and why my son chose not to apply to more “reach” schools even though he would have some chance at being admitted.
Most net price calculators that we used simply ask “Do you know your EFC from FAFSA” and when we say yes and enter the number, they kick out a number that while still really large, is much less than the “reach” schools he looked at.
When your expected contribution from PROFILE schools hovers around the $50k mark, that’s probably what you will end up having to pay even with Merit money from those schools. Some exception, but getting more merit money than $25-30k is very difficult to get. With these schools running $75-80k+ a year in cost of attendance , any scholarships reduce your need right back down to the level where you might get financial aid. Subsidized loans (small amount) and work study might come into the picture but not much in grants from private schools.
My youngest was right where your son is in stats, and Tulane did award home a half price scholarship that would have brought his COA there to mid thirty thousands. A year. He was in running for Villanova Presidential award and a full ride at Tulane to be determined at year end, but having looked at who got those awards , highly unlikely he would have gotten anything. Fordham did offer free tuition which would have been a very good deal for him.
But still, bottom line, state schools and Fordham. would have been the best financial deal. He could have gone tuition free to them. Alabama and Temple, both fine state schools had very good deals for him. But as far as highly selective private schools, he was lucky to get get accepted and no money was offered.
CSS Profile is simply a data collecting tool. The colleges that require it take the data, run their own formula, and spit out their own number.
Edited to add: if you think home equity is weighing too heavily on the results from Profile schools, there are some Profile schools that do not consider home equity in making need-based aid decisions.
The real question is this: Does a merit scholarship reduce your EFC?
The answer is “it depends on the school, but generally not.” I think it’s basically a load of marketing hooey. Perhaps you feel good because you got a “dean’s merit” award, but if you didn’t get that then they would just give you some other grant.
I have “merit aid” from some colleges, which brings me down to right around my EFC. But they won’t give me any more, so I can’t afford to go unless my parents can afford the EFC, which they can’t. Frankly I’d rather have the ability to borrow more and use the merit to reduce my EFC, because my parents don’t have the money.
Other schools (like some big state schools) are offering me merit aid which brings me well below the EFC, even close to free. I don’t want to go there but I may have to.
@hopingforbest11
Sounds very similar to our son’s situation. The celebration “You were awarded a 20k merit/dean/provost/presidential…” but it really takes an 70k private school to 50k which is above your EFC is really doesn’t change a family’s financial reality measurably.
PS. Good news getting into schools that offer you some affordable options. Many kids in our circle (son’s friends) don’t have that as a good back up.
Jan. 15 update: So far the news has been very much like CC posters predicted. Son has been admitted to all schools he selected and the financial aid has been disappointing. For reference our FAFSA EFC is 40,000 per year. School 1 awarded him the Dean’s scholarship for 18k reducing the cost from 76,000 to 58,000 per year with no additional aid. School 2 awarded him Presidential award of 25k reducing the cost from 65,000 to exactly 40 with no additional aid. So thus far it appears that those veteran posters who suggested that merit awards won’t bring your total cost below your FAFSA Expected Family Contribution are accurate, sadly.
JD7777 - I’ve been following this thread. What will your kid do? Does he have some good safeties lined up? He’s a smart kid - he’ll do well where ever I bet.
so - I’ve followed this thread because my kid has the same stats basically; and the same income range; his EFC is half of 40K this year because we have another kid in college; so the next year it’ll be 40k+. The numbers spit out by CSS schools are crazy; no way to do that plus have another kid in college. We went for auto merit at the well known auto merit schools. It is sort of disappointing though; I get that feeling. hope things work out.
@JD7777 There are plenty of schools that would have given your son enough money to reduce the total COA to below the EFC that your income/assets generated ($40k).
The bigger issue seems to be that the schools your son was interested in and the list of schools that would have given enough merit to drop the cost below your family’s EFC do not overlap.
In some ways, the lesson here is one that many, many families don’t want to acknowledge; if you are looking for a certain amount of money for college - you may very well have to change your idea of what schools are the right fit and to which schools you should apply.
I hope your son does have a school he can afford and he is willing to attend. He has the ability to do well wherever he goes.
There are plenty of colleges out there that would have given this student VERY significant merit aid…that would have reduced the costs to much less than $40,000 a year.
It appears this student didn’t apply to those schools.
To get very very significant merit aid, one sometimes needs to move out of the top 50 rankings. That doesn’t mean the college not a great school. Your son could get an outstanding education for a fraction of $40,000 a year…because he could have gotten significant merit aid at different colleges.
@thumper1
Well, I’m not exactly sure this boils down entirely to choices. My son applied to zero “top” ranked schools, largely based on my belief, after attending a very expensive, prestigious east coast school, that the experience isn’t worth the cost. Based on reading many, many pages of this forum, he targeted 8 schools in which his stats would put him above the average, in a couple cases well above the average. He applied to 2 state flagships, a few smaller Catholic schools, 1 larger east coast private. Based on information here, he should see quite a bit of merit at 2 of these schools (fingers crossed that kids applying this year will get similar $ as last).
So still a bit of a waiting game and I am hanging on hoping this will turn out OK. But in terms of following the traditional, College Confidential mantra of applying to a school where your stats will be well above average, he has followed that in every case (except maybe 1). The 58k out of pocket school was risky as the school has a poor reputation for providing merit even if your stats are higher than average (unless you are an underrepresented minority student).
OP, I think your shock and disappointment is what many parents go through when it comes time to figuring out how to pay for college.
Your income at $140k is way too high to get any real “need-based” aid (like Pell grants). Merit aid will be your greatest chance at free money. Most schools will give out the rest of “financial aid” in the form of loans.
Schools that “meet full need” will look at all your assets (excluding house/retirement), and believe me, you have to have very little to receive anything.
I have learned that really the only way to go to college for cheap or free for someone in your income bracket is to be a recruited athlete or a National Merit Finalist. There are so many students with extraordinary GPA’s and SAT’s that colleges that used to give automatic free rides have limited it to a few competitive scholarships. Any real significant scholarships otherwise come to those with very low income.
The term “financial aid” is very loaded, because as parents we consider free money the only significant type of aid. No one wants their kids (or themselves) to be saddled with debt. So when colleges come back with loans as the majority of “financial aid” it can be a shock. But you are not alone as the majority of families fall into your category (myself included).
Did he apply to Arizona or NM…both places where he would garner great merit aid. I don’t think it’s too late for those, and their honors colleges are terrific.
He sounds like a great kid, and I’m sure he will do well wherever he attends college.
For a significant number of meet full need schools, this is absolutely not true. Example: at Stanford, a family with a gross income similar to OP’s would receive on average grant/scholarship aid of nearly $50,000. Yes, I know, Stanford is not the normal situation, and besides, the acceptance rate is insanely low. But, there are plenty of other meet full need schools that provide something to students from a family that has quite a bit more more than “very little.”
Any college that touts loans other than federal direct student loans as “financial aid” should be ashamed of itself.
But, there are plenty of other meet full need schools that provide something to students from a family that has quite a bit more more than “very little.”
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Out of a couple of thousand colleges, there are about 75 that say they will meet full need, even fewer that do not include loans.
But the issue is, a college’s definition does not match the parents’ definition of need.
“Amherst College
Barnard College
Bates College
Babson College*
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of Technology
Carleton College
Case Western Reserve University*
Claremont McKenna College
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Holy Cross
Colorado College
Columbia University
Connecticut College
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Denison University*
Dickinson College*
Duke University
Emory University
Franklin & Marshall College
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
Georgetown University
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Harvey Mudd College
Haverford College
Johns Hopkins University
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Macalester College
Marietta College*
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Mount Holyoke College
Northeastern University*
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Reed College
Rice University
Scripps College
Skidmore College*
Smith College
Stanford University
St. Olaf College*
Swarthmore College
Thomas Aquinas College
Trinity College
Tufts University*
Union College
University of Chicago
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Richmond
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University
Washington University in St. Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University
*These 11 colleges report meeting 100% of financial need for freshman, but for not all undergraduates. Many of these colleges still mean above 90% of financial need for undergraduates.”
I was directly addressing hopedaisy’s erroneous claim that at schools that meet full need, “you have to have very little to receive anything.” This is absolutely not true, regardless of whether there are two colleges or two thousand that meet full need. And I think it’s legitimate that guaranteed federal direct loans be considered part of a student’s EFC. This is a government-backed benefit that is limited and helps a family access future money which together with savings and present income can be part of a solid and traditional way to pay for a college education.
Would you have the amount of institutional need-based aid determined by what the student’s parents say they need? That’s not a good plan for staying within a school’s financial aid budget. How would you do it? What would you change in the current system to make institutional aid from meet full need schools better reflect real world need while at the same time being as fair as possible across the student socioeconomic spectrum?