<p>Mea Culpa - I admit it was a stretch to make such an assumption. :eek:</p>
<p>Anyway - St Joseph’s - does in fact only give merit aid. Regardless of how needy you are. Hence, if you are poor you better be really really smart -
at the time what amazed me was the attitude of the financial aid office - What do you mean you don’t want $25,000 in “alternative loans” each year?
truly bizarre.
St Joseph’s does cater to the archdiocese of Philadelphia and probably Fordham caters to the Archdiocese of NY - in both are plenty of Catholic families with plenty of money so their merit scholarships look pretty good.
For St Joseph’s at least - they could care less what your EFC is.</p>
<p>Bottom line - when investigating colleges - ASK if need based grant are available. A lesson I heard the hard way since after visiting twice and reading all the literature this was not apparent until the financial aid award came.</p>