<p>Expected Fantasy Contribution: $37,268</p>
<p>Mount St. Mary’s College of Maryland COA $40,588</p>
<p>Presidential Scholarship 13,500.00
Unsub Stafford Loan 5,500.00
Total 19,000.00</p>
<p>Gettysburg College COA $50,810</p>
<p>Gettysburg College Grant 10,576.00
Federal Direct Sub Loan 3,361.00
Federal Direct Unsub 139.00
Total 14,076.00</p>
<p>St. Mary’s College of Maryland COA $27,380.00</p>
<p>Direct Unsub Loan 5,500.00
Direct Plus Loan 21,880.00
Total 27,380.00</p>
<p>Miami University of Ohio COA $37,302</p>
<p>Miami Non-Res Scholarship 4,500.00
Fed Sub Loan 3,299.00
Fed Unsub Loan 2,201.00
Total 10,000.00</p>
<p>Given my husband’s income we got slammed with a high EFC. Plus we have about $35K saved for each of our kids in a 529 savings plan.</p>
<p>The St. Mary’s colleges seem to be in about a dead heat, but still leave you on the hook for about $27K a year.</p>
<p>Do you have any in-state public colleges as financial safety schools?</p>
<p>Leaves loans out of the picture for evaluation purposes and subtract grants from the COA.</p>
<p>The cost to you after grants, whether through loans, earnings, or savings is (approx.):
$27,000 Mount St. Mary’s College of Maryland
$40,000 Gettysburg College
$27,380 St. Mary’s College of Maryland
$33,000 Miami University of Ohio</p>
<p>This assumes that books and incidentals included in COA are about the same for all of the schools.</p>
<p>Mt. St. Marys…</p>
<p>COA:… $40,588</p>
<h2>free $… $13,500</h2>
<p>…$27,088</p>
<p>St. Marys…$27,380</p>
<p>Yep…the St. Marys cost about the same. Your child can take staffords and then the parents will have to come up with about $22k.</p>
<p>Your EFC is unaffordable…but the St. Marys have essentially cut that substantially. </p>
<p>Can you afford the “new” EFC of about $22k (if your child takes $5500 in Staffords)? If you have $35k saved, then that’s about $9k per year. That would mean that you’d only have to come up with about $13k per year. </p>
<p>Is that do-able?</p>
<p>You mentioned, “$35K saved for each of our kids.” How many years will you have multiple children in college? That will have a large impact on EFC. However, it remains to be seen at what point you would qualify for need-based grants from these schools. That could make a difference, but should be understood upfront. The colleges may not be very forthcoming about this information since they can’t give any guarantees about the future, but you can probably find out what their current policy is with respect to loan limits and grants.</p>
<p>Personally, I would consider using the 529 money for each child before taking out loans. The interest avoided by not taking out loans will likely give you a better rate of return than your 529 plan. In addition, drawing down assets will result in a slightly lower EFC. There may be other factors though.</p>
<p>Love your interpretation of EFC - “Expected Fantasy Contribution”. Ain’t it the truth!</p>
<p>*
Personally, I would consider using the 529 money for each child before taking out loans.*</p>
<p>Good idea for the unsub loans!</p>
<p>How many years will you have multiple children in college? That will have a large impact on EFC. However, it remains to be seen at what point you would qualify for need-based grants from these schools. That could make a difference, but should be understood upfront. The colleges may not be very forthcoming about this information since they can’t give any guarantees about the future,</p>
<p>True…but if these schools will just gap or put in larger Plus loans, it won’t make a difference.</p>
<p>I doubt Miami U would give more with more kids in college. It looks like St. Mary’s College doesn’t have any money to give. And, it looks like Mt. St. Marys only gives a set merit scholarship…that wouldn’t increase with more kids in college.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all the comments! It’s about what I figured. Of course, D is leaning towards Gettysburg, but Mt. St. Mary’s IS the only one we could manage.</p>
<p>Our son is a freshman at a private school and doing well - 4.0 GPA and has always excelled at standardized tests.</p>
<p>Daughter is a very disciplined and hard worker. 3.85 GPA (4.41 weighted) ranked 7th in her class of 385. IB program at school was vigorous, but, she is a lousy standardized test taker. She took 2 SAT prep courses and could only manage 1860 combined verbal, math and writing. That hurt her because she didn’t get the merit aid.</p>
<p>We were very new to this process and unfortunately found this website late in the game. Attended high school college session and college fair that told us to apply wherever she wanted, so poor job on our part finding “matches.”</p>
<p>As usual, our second child will benefit from the mistakes made with duaghter. She should have applied to colleges she was over-qualified for, that said however, we thought Gettysburg would be a reach and she got in.</p>