I’m aware tuition rises every year but I’ve been seeing way more students say their financial aid was cut in half or NPC was wildly off which leads me to believe this is caused by unique circumstances this year = trump admin budget cuts
I plan on applying to WashU and heard they offer one of the best aid packages out of all top schools so a couple months ago, presumably before it updated for 2025-2026, I ran the NPC and it estimated I would have to pay around 37k (family of 4 with twin also attending college, 170k~ net income, owns additional home worth 450k.) This was 7k higher than the WashU instant NPC’s highest estimate that it claims on the website 90% of students will pay within range which makes sense considering our assets. That’s.
(found here: Cost & Aid | Undergraduate Admissions | WashU )
Decided to run NPC again today since I’m really considering WashU ED at this point and it gave me an estimate of 57k a year… Used myintuition right after which is still set to 2024/2025 academic year and it gave me best estimate of 37k as well confirming things. I’m willing to pay high 40k at most for a school if it’s really worth it but high 50s is insane.
Additionally dug a bit and saw a post on the WashU subreddit from 4 months ago where a family of 5 making 139k a year had to pay 52k when their NPC originally came out to 29k…
Genuinely freaking out because basically every single t50 now comes out to 70k+ which is completely unreasonable. I’m interested in business specifically consulting and recruiting is reliant on school prestige.
Some additional info about my financial situation: my dad is planning to retire after my senior year (and my mom made an unusually high amount this year since she worked lots of double paid overtime which she can no longer do bc our state gov which she works for is no longer offering double pay overtime) so our net income after this will be at 60-70k. After using WashU’s NPC with this info I will be expected to pay 27k a year.
Right now I’m considering a few options:
Go to a school that will guarantee lots of merit $$ then transfer to a good consulting school after my 1st year where I will receive more money in need based aid for reasons detailed above. This is risky as my transfer app could get rejected everywhere, and I’ve also seen many discourage transferring since your time working on transfer apps could be applied to networking/prepping etc.
Take the financial hit and commit to WashU if I get in ED.
Give up and become a bio major on the pre-pa path. I do enjoy biology and chemistry but this isn’t what I want my future to look like. Career changes happen all the time though so hopefully I can just learn to enjoy it or switch later down the line.
If the finances are significantly different than than the NPC indicated, you are not bound to accept the ED offer. Make sure you keep a screenshot of the NPC outcome.
I find it hard to believe you own a second house worth $450k and were showing that much aid.
The answer to the question is simple.
Set a budget - a 4 year budget.
Let’s say it’s $200k
Take off a chunk - say 15% so 170k. Divide by 4. You can afford $42.5k a year - I’m counting only tuition, room and board.
WashU doesn’t assure a consulting job - and consultants come from all majors and all schools. And many who want to be from Wash U won’t have that opportunity. Yet some from Mizzou, as an example, will.
Why would you bind yourself somewhere that sounds like you could afford but don’t want to ??
And why would you major in something you don’t want ?
Going to WashU seems a horrible waste of money to me in your specific case. And while yes some schools fare better than others, there are no assurances - and yes the McKinseys of the world hire wide - schools like ASU and many more. And not always business.
Don’t use Myintuition…it provides a huge COA range that makes it worthless. Did you include the $450K second home in both the myintuition assets and NPC assets?
NPC estimates at meet full need schools should generally keep pace with direct cost increases. Why don’t you contact WashU financial aid and ask them if their NPC is accurate?
Remember that lower income is only going to impact your senior year in college, assuming first full year retirement is 2027. (I worked thru that for you on the other thread). For your first year of college (the NPCs you are running now), you should be using 2024 income and current assets.
Maybe for MBB. But there are many other consulting firms that hire from many schools…KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, Huron, LEK, CRAi, I’ll stop there, I’m sure you get my point.
ETA: If you want help running the NPCs, you can PM me.
Don’t currently have access to my ss of the NPC result bc it’s on my laptop which i left at home (currently abroad rn) but I have this recent screenshot from myintuition. the range isn’t anywhere near 57k. Yes I labelled the 450k as additional assets.
I know MBB hires from other schools but it has never hired anyone from any schools in my state, and my state flagship has little consulting presence in general from my research. Please give me reccs for schools that could provide lots of merit aid and also has some presence in consulting/business.
As for why major in something I don’t want to I feel like I have to be realistic. I would love to major in whatever I want to but I have to consider career options. My parents can’t support me forever.
This is an interesting point, though. My daughter is a rising junior at a UC and the amount we owe this year is several thousand more than we have in the past due to a decrease in aid not tied to our FAFSA/SAI. In addition, in a Facebook group for families from the school, there was a post recently about someone’s costs going up 80% from last year due to a decrease in offered aid, with numerous people chiming in stating they are facing the same issue. So at least where we are, this is true: costs have not only risen, but financial aid has fallen significantly for almost everyone this year. I am not sure if this is unique to our school or our state, but seeing this post I do wonder…
WashU is a special school and has the own NPC calculator website. Personally I found the webpage is not reliable. The results change all the time even if I input same information.
I did not find same problems for other schools such Princeton, U Chicago even they also use their individual webpage NPC calculator.
My impression from what I see on reddit and other facebook groups is that this is happening at more schools than just ours. But I don’t have actual data, just anecdotes.
To be clear, when OP fills out FAFSA, the entire $450K will be assessed at the parent’s rate when calculating OP’s SAI. It will not be split between siblings. CSS Profile schools may split between siblings, one would have to run NPC scenarios to test that.
Yep. Different than being at a meet full need school. (My point is that I don’t think WashU’s NPC is being impacted by Trump/governmental policies. Yet.)
So I agree you should go to your favorite college you can comfortably afford, and then start off with a curriculum plan that makes sense in light of your current interests, planning to be flexible as may be warranted.
In terms of your further education and career after college, whether you will even still want to go into consulting remains TBD, and then your path into consulting could be any one of many. Like, maybe you work for a while to gain some industry experience, then do an MBA. Or something else. Point being going into consulting straight out of college is not the only, and not always the best, path.
Or maybe you decide you want to do something in the health industries, and go to a grad or professional experience. And maybe you do that first AS your industry experience, then eventually go into consulting. And on and on.
No need to decide any of this now. But if you choose a comfortably affordable college that has the sorts of programs you are considering, it will keep your options open and let you follow whatever path turns out to be right for you.
