How can OP accept the offer? They can’t spend their entire net income on college. What would they live on? Students should plan on funding 4 years of college, not 3.
Other NPC calculators don’t matter. What was the result of the NYU net price calculator? When you say tuition was around $20k less does that mean the total net cost (tuition, room, & board) for your family was $58k/year? That’s more than half your parents’ gross income and a substantial part of their net. How were you planning to pay that? You can only borrow ~$5500/year on your own.
How much can your parents pay without borrowing? Do you have any schools that fall within that budget?
Have you and parents spoken with a staffer in NYU’s fin aid dept yet? If not, do that this week…first task is to make sure there’s not a mistake in your CSS Profile, or on their side. If there are no mistakes and no changes in your family’s financials there would be no basis for appeal. Not sure what happened when you ran NPCs, but if your parents are divorced, own a business, or have significant real estate assets, NPCs will probably not be accurate.
You can not afford to be full pay at NYU, so if that stands, you will have to move on.
What can/will your family pay per year of school?
Do you have any affordable acceptances yet? What other schools have you applied to?
If you want to go to med school you have to minimize undergrad debt. If you do want to work a few years after undergrad, a neuroscience major coming out of NYU won’t have greater opportunities (or make more $) than a neuroscience major from a state school.
Strongly disagree with above poster. You should not have to work a ton of jobs and still go into debt just to be able to afford undergrad. You also shouldn’t pressure yourself to take less than 4 years to complete your degree. Especially since you want to go to Med School, undergrad shouldn’t make you take out loans.
thanks everyone for helping me and giving candid responses. To clarify, NYU’s net price calculator estimated a cost 20k lower. We contacted the financial office and there were no mistakes on CSS or FAFSA. My parents were planning on paying the tuition if it was around 50k and I would have taken out the $5500 loan if it was closer to 60k. We knew it was an estimate so we had a range of what was affordable. Although I love the school, NYU doesn’t benefit middle-class students like myself, but because my future goal is med school I have to think about that more and look at the offers from state schools. thanks again for the inputs!
As well as public schools, you could look at an excellent lac like Colby (if your stats are strong enough) which has a recent policy of capping the bill at $15,000 for families with an income below $150,000. Since the financing is only based on one parent in a divorce, you would qualify. Of course you are past the deadline for this year, but you could take a gap year and work and save.
If NYU is your dream school, they have a nice tuition free Med school you can aim for in a few years.
Go somewhere else like your in-state flagship, get great grades, do some clinical work and research, do well on your MCAT, graduate debt free - or close to it, and then apply to NYU Med along with other schools.