<p>Agent99, I am kind of like that in regards to traffic & distance.
I decided that everything within Seattle proper takes 30 minutes to get to regardless of traffic or distance or even if I have a clue to where it is.
The thing is, I am usually right- so I don’t learn when I am likely to need more time.</p>
<p>I used to think that about Seattle, until my good friend moved to Woodinville. Not Seattle proper, but wow. The traffic is L.A. worthy.</p>
<p>My D’s die has been cast after spending a lot of time on NPC, in the final analysis it was uncanny just how spot on the money they were for the individual schools,once they had our financial information in place. HPY are much better endowed and would have offered her more grant in aid, but alas we couldn’t penetrate. She is going to one of the top 10 private schools in the country but they expect us to contribute effectively 40% of our middle class annual income. We only own our home but they know exactly how much equity we have in it and they would be expecting us to take out a second mortgage or liquidate even modest investment accounts to come up to the $62k total, which is the most popular cost of annual attendance figure for most private schools even if they are not that prestigious. The only two state schools we looked at that came in that ball park were UNC and UVA. I see that you are getting some really great information here.</p>
<p>Zoe: Are you taking out a second mortgage then?</p>
<p>Just wanted to add here that only approx. 18% Of the UA’s budget comes from state(Tax payer appropriations) And also after changing their merit package for NMF from 4 years of dorm living to 1 year…they retracted that and this year are back to offering all four.</p>
<p>Not yet.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul.</p>
<p>Zoe: where did you hear that about the UA scholarship change?</p>
<p>I was just reminiscing today about Woodinville. 
I used to live on Cottage Lake when Woodinville had one flashing red light.
Its been a while.
Seattle is actually much better traffic wise now because you can mostly take alternate routes.
I miss the ruralness.</p>
<p>Zoe is the 40% from your before or after tax income?
Generally schools that meet 100% of need expect families to contribute 1/3 to 1/4 of before tax income. Those making well over six figures &/or those who are self employed ( or those who have significant equity) are expected to pay more of the cost.</p>
<p>Rob
We just checked the UA website and I can see why you are asking this. It still says one year of housing. Our daughter had been accepted and was offered this package. It could be that we got an individual letter sent out to actual accepted NMF to correct it back to the four years of housing offered.</p>
<p>emeraldkity</p>
<p>I believe I was calculating that on our after tax( what I would call disposable income)</p>
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</p>
<p>I didn’t see where the person who asked what public school gives significant aid was talking only about oos students. But, for the record (I realize this is tangential to the OT), I did not mention UW because of the state aid, but for the university aid. I’ll have two kids there next year. Each ended up with an EFC just below 10K. Each got $9K in university grants. Son got an additional $5K in state grant AND $6.5K merit scholarship (he’ll be a senior; this is a new award for him)</p>
<p>Two kids in college at the same time for under $20k…impressive!</p>
<p>A lot of the southern states have adopted a primarily merit-based aid model, not just Alabama. </p>
<p>Georgia is the most extreme example, with the Zell Miller and HOPE scholarships for instate. The requirements are such that virtually every student admitted to Georgia Tech qualifies for full tuition or 90% tuition scholarship. High performing low income students get nice aid, but average and low performing low income students are relegated to CC and the lowest-tier schools, in general. It’s a very different model, and obviously very regressive. </p>
<p>CA is the other end of the spectrum, with generous need-based aid and minimal merit. </p>
<p>See:
<a href=“Price of Admission: Shift to Merit Scholarships Stirs Debate - WSJ”>Price of Admission: Shift to Merit Scholarships Stirs Debate - WSJ;
<p>
</p>
<p>This is not correct. The better public universities vary widely in the percentage of need they meet, but those that meet the most need tend to invest heavily in need-based FA from institutional (i.e., university, not state and federal) sources.</p>
<p>Here are the public universities ranked as high or higher than Alabama, followed by their average percentage of need met, and their rank among these 35 top public universities in percentage of need met. Note that Alabama comes out very near the bottom in the latter category:</p>
<p>US News rank/school/ave % of need met/ rank among 35 top publics in % of need met</p>
<p>1 UC Berkeley 83% (11)
2 UCLA 84% (10)
2 UVA 100% (1)
4 Michigan 90% (4)
5 UNC Chapel Hill 100% (1)
6 William & Mary 77% (14)
7 Georgia Tech 55% (32)
8 UC Davis 82% (12)
8 UC San Diego 87% (7)
10 UC Santa Barbara 86% (8)
10 Wisconsin 72% (18)
12 UC Irvine 85% (9)
13 Penn State 56% (30)
13 Illinois 64% (26)
13 Texas 67% (21)
13 U Washington 78% (13)
17 Florida 77% (14)
18 Ohio State 55% (32)
19 Maryland 58% (30)
19 Pitt 56% (30)
21 UConn 65% (25)
21 Georgia 67% (21)
23 Purdue 95% (3)
23 Texas A&M 70% (19)
25 Clemson 66% (24)
25 Rutgers 52% (35)
25 Minnesota 75% (16)
28 Michigan State 62% (29)<br>
28 Iowa 63% (29)
28 VaTech 69% (20)
31 UDelaware 73% (17)
32 Colorado School of Mines 67% (21)
32 SUNY Environmental Sciences 90% (4)
32 Alabama 53% (34)
32 UC Santa Cruz 88% (6)</p>
<p>The University of Alabama itself invests about $23 million of institutional (not state or federal) funds in need-based aid, and about $53 million of institutional funds in merit aid. What’s unusual about that is the ratio–far more going to merit than to need, leaving those with need with substantial need unmet. </p>
<p>The UCs are at the opposite pole. UC Santa Cruz, for example, invests an almost identical amount of institutional funds in FA as the similarly ranked Alabama, but at Santa Cruz $72 million goes to meet need and only $4 million goes to merit; as a consequence, Santa Cruz meets 88% of need, while Alabama meets only 53%. And it’s not just the UCs. The University of Minnesota, ranked a few spots ahead of Alabama, allocates nearly 3 times as much in institutional funds to need-based aid ($48 million) as to merit ($18 million) and manages to meet 75% of need. Purdue, ranked another notch higher, meets 95% of need by investing $38 million in institutional funds on top of $20 million in state and $25 million in federal grants and scholarships. The real heavy hitters are schools like Michigan, which invests $88 million in institutional funds in need-based aid and another $46 million in merit aid, while getting virtually nothing in state-sponsored FA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The point was, a California student from a poor family would find much better need-based financial aid at the most selective (UC Berkeley) and least selective (CSUDH) state universities in California than an Alabama student from a poor family.</p>
<p>The University of Alabama admits students from the full range of high school academic stats that UCs and CSUs admit (i.e. from the 2.5 HS GPA / 900 SAT CR+M students to the 4.0 HS GPA / 1600 SAT CR+M students). Inherently, this is neither good nor bad, but it does mean that UA has a wider range of students in terms of academic ability than any given UC or CSU. This can be advantageous to some students (late bloomers who can get the opportunities of the flagship despite HS GPA issues from 10th grade), but prestige-concerned students who judge a school by its worst students may not like that.</p>
<p>But it is true that UA has a very different scholarship and financial aid policy than the UCs and CSUs do.</p>
<p>Re: #135 and percentage of need met by public universities</p>
<p>That list might be more informative if it had separate percentages for need met for in-state and out-of-state students. The 82-88% of need met at UCs may obscure the difference between 100% or close to 100% of need met for in-state students, but a very low percentage of need met for out-of-state students.</p>
<p>The low percentage of need met for Penn State, Illinois, and Texas is consistent with what I found doing net price calculator experiments for in-state students from middle income households.</p>
<p>Bclintock…you named a bunch of publics that do give state aid and then listed their percent of need met. If you’re in a state that gives generous state aid (and doesn’t have a large percent of OOS students) then you’re going to have a higher number. You keep misusing stats.i</p>
<p>The point was, a California student from a poor family would find much better need-based financial aid at the most selective (UC Berkeley) and least selective (CSUDH) state universities in California than an Alabama student from a poor family.</p>
<p>Right, because bankrupt Calif (the state) gives generous aid…those CSUs aren’t. You’re bashing Bama (a univ) for not doing what a big STATE does (and may not always be able to do since it’s not likely going to be able to sustain its generous Cal Grant system paying all fees). </p>
<p>The poor kid attending Dingy Hills isn’t getting butkis from Dingy Hills, he’s getting money from the state of Calif and the feds. Goodness, folks, compare apples with apples.</p>
<p>“I am not surprised at all that an Ivy-stat applicant would qualify for significant merit aid at UA. Not sure where you got that.
What I was referring to is the consideration of the two (types of) schools.
I doubt there is very much overlap between HYP and UA applicants. I could be wrong.”</p>
<p>I don’t know about “much” overlap, but I’m here to report there will absolutely be overlap for at least one applicant. Yes, he would attend Ivy if given the chance, thanks to their generous aid, but since we can’t be sure he’ll win the lottery, he will also apply to UA. I suspect that happens quite a bit.</p>
<p>Wow, I had no idea Bammers defended the academic side of the house as vigorously as they do the football team. PAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!</p>
<p>Not all schools require you to apply for financial aid in order to qualify for merit money. Check out the LACs–many give scholarships that you don’t even need to apply for if your scores and grades are high enough.</p>
<p>But some schools do require you to provide financial info just to make sure you don’t qualify for need-based aid before awarding merit aid.</p>