Low Scholarship, fafsa??

Paying for College
1

<p>My GPA is 4.688, SAT is 1950, SAT II for math II is 800, SAT II for Chem is 770. ACT is 28.
I joint many activities in high school.</p>

<p>I live in a single parent home. My mom’s income is about 50,000.</p>

<p>I applied dream, good, average and save colleges.</p>

<p>However, the scholarship and grants are low and loans such as Plus loan are high.</p>

<p>I wonder whether it is because FAFSA.</p>

<p>Will it make a difference if I change from dependent to independent?</p>

<p>what other things on fafsa will affect my financial aid package??</p>

2

<p>You can not change from dependent to independent - you must qualify for that status based on the FAFSA rules. You can not simply declare it. To qualify as independent you must be either 24 years old, married, ex-military, or have your own child. It doesn’t matter if your parent claims you on their tax forms or not, that has absolutely no bearing on it. </p>

<p>It may be that the FAFSA forms were filled out incorrectly or that your parent didn’t qualify for many deductions on her tax forms in the first place and thus her income looked high even though her gross is a modest 50K. But assuming the forms were filled out correctly, you need to face the facts that you got what you got in terms of scholarships and grants.</p>

<p>First question to ask is what was your EFC? It should have said it on the FAFSA form when you filled it out (near the end of the process). EFC is only advisory - colleges are not obliged to do much about that number, especially privates. However, the number can help reveal what kind of packages would be reasonable. </p>

<p>Secondly, while your GPA is high, your regular SAT is not big scholarship range. Neither is your ACT score. <em>Some</em> modest grants/scholarships, yes, but not the big ones - half or more of tuition, etc. Had you applied to some 3rd tier colleges that no one has ever heard of you may have gotten more, but no guarantees. </p>

<p>Realize that as I say your SAT and ACT are not big scores I only mean that in the sense of how college admission officials were deciding to give out big money. Your scores as an indication of college and life success are amazing. It is just that you were likely competing for money from kids with 2200+ SATs and 33+ ACTs. There were enough spots for ADMISSION at your colleges with kids having 2000 SATs <em>and</em> 2200+ SATs, but the big money likely went only to the latter group.</p>

<p>Too many families are not aware of how EFCs, Financial Aid and the rest of the system works. Colleges are also being squeezed as their endowments are down by 25% or more in the huge global financial meltdown we are all in. These decimated college endowments are where colleges get the cash to offer out their grants!!! The money isn’t there. </p>

<p>And college tuitions are going up easily 8% per year, often with even bigger jumps (25% one year recently in California’s publics!). Parents and students have not been adjusting for the shock - and colleges don’t want to loose face/reputation so they downplay how they can’t offer as much in grants/scholarships and thus the public is not very well informed. </p>

<p>So what can we help you with now? You are not the first student and family to start looking seriously at Plan B in terms of college options.</p>

3

<p>Are you a US citizen?</p>

4

<p>Where did you apply to schools? Did the schools guarantee to meet full need? Did they require forms OTHER than the FAFSA? Does your family have assets of some kind (rental property, savings, second home, etc)? Is there a non-custodial parent (your dad) whose information was required by some schools?</p>

<p>What was your FAFSA EFC? Was it LESS than $50,000 for your mom…or more?</p>

5

<p>What EFC value is high? What is low? My EFC is 3535</p>

6

<p>That EFC sounds like it should qualify you for a partial Pell Grant. Did you get that? </p>

<p>Getting mostly loans is very common. Most schools don’t have enough money to provide grants and scholarships above and beyond what the federal government gives them. Most of them won’t get anywhere close to meeting full need for anyone without using loans. That isn’t really the FAFSA’s fault though; apart from Pell Grant and eligibility for subsidized Stafford, Perkins loans and work-study, your EFC is pretty much meaningless. Your EFC is low but that doesn’t mean that schools will meet your need or even meet it without loans.</p>