How much aid can I get realistically?

thumper1
Sun, 12 Oct 2014 01:47:17 +0000

Net price calculators are wildly variable, like I said. Harvard’s NPC, on their site and not through collegeboard, tells me 30k EFC, Stanford’s tells me 40k, Columbia’s, through the collgeboard NPC, tells me 50k. Since they’re very comparable schools in general they should probably be giving me similar amounts but they’re not and that’s worrying.



Um…no. They might be comparable schools in terms of USNew rankings, but they have different policies in terms of awarding need based aid, and different formulas for calculating need based aid. And clearly some are more generous than others to higher income earners…and some are not.

Your family income is on the high side, I would strongly urge you to look at those affordable colleges. Build your list beginning with affordable schools that you like. Work up,from there.

It’s not likely that your family contribution will only be $25,000 a year at most exoensive private universities.