<p>Northwestern calculates financial aid based only on need, but they will meet 100% of that need in the aid package. Northwestern’s general aid process is taking your FAFSA and CSS, calculating an EFC from that, and subtracting it from expected cost of attendance. The balance is your aid package, made up of grants, scholarships, loans, and sometimes work-study. The lack of true merit scholarships is aggravating(there are additional scholarships endowed by alumni and other groups for students that meet certain esoteric criteria, e.g. of Armenian descent or children of Methodist preachers), and I’ve never heard of anybody having success in negotiating more money. I was able to get several loans in my aid package replaced with additional scholarship, effectively giving me more money, but not increasing my net amount of aid.</p>
<p>I’m the oldest child, so making the NU decision was definitely tough. They gave me more aid than all but two of my other options, but it was still costing ~25K to go. The nice thing about EFC is that it plummets with multiple kids in school. Now that my sister’s in college, my quarterly tuition bill is around $500. Also, assuming your child wants to eventually live off campus, living off-campus is significantly cheaper and could save several grand a year off dorm living, easy. Off-campus living also possibly wouldn’t be covered under the full rides your child has at other schools. I say all this merely to suggest that the financial disadvantage of attending Northwestern over other schools narrows slightly over time, although whether it’s enough to be relevant is questionable.</p>
<p>I would also take a look at NU’s financial aid site here: [Eligibility</a> & Policies: Undergraduate Financial Aid - Northwestern University](<a href=“http://undergradaid.northwestern.edu/eligibility-and-policies/index.html]Eligibility”>http://undergradaid.northwestern.edu/eligibility-and-policies/index.html)
They say aid decisions will start coming out on 4/1, so at a minimum wait to see what the package looks like before making a final decision. I don’t know if my $.02 helps or hurts, but that’s been my experience.</p>
<p>Source: NU Senior, no hard facts, just a whole lot of observational and anecdotal evidence</p>