Hope it all works out. Remember moving forward, the interest on your HELOC is no longer deductible as mortgage interest.
And remember too…you are actually mortgaging your house for your kid’s college education.
It sounds like you have not turned down your ED 1 admission. This means that nothing is going to happen with your RD because you are not suppose to make any new applications (your school will probably not send out any school documents).
@thumper1 Thanks. And yes - all reasons we are pursuing more affordable options.
@ thumper1 Scratch what I said earlier, your message got my husband to look it up again and found that the new tax bill has made the interest non-deductible, so you are right.
@sybbie719 the ED agreement only said he cannot apply to another school ED. His HS school knows what is going on and already sent the materials. We also confirmed with the second choice school over the phone that RD was OK. We are still trying to determine if we can afford it, so as of now we are not committed to the ED school.
That ED 1 school hasn’t certainly given you a deadline day for accepting…or not…their offer of admission.
When is that?
Jan 15
This means that your ED application is still live and your school should not be sending information to any more colleges until you get your ED situation resolved.
We did not hear about the financial aid until two days ago. Their recommendation for affording the tuition was to take out a loan. We do not yet know if we will get it. Therefore the financial aid issue is not final. We are complying with the spirit of the agreement, which is to go there if you can afford it. He will go there if we determine we can afford it.
I’m curious why getting a loan is taking so long. I could walk into my bank tomorrow…and walk out with a personal loan in about an hour. If I wanted a home equity loan…it would take all of two days.
@thumper1 Not sure what you are implying, but there was a major snowstorm in our area this week. We applied on Thursday and haven’t heard back. I’m sorry to disappoint you, there is no nefarious activity going on.
@onthefarm, it’s not unreasonable to ask why you weren’t investigating loans while your FA appeal was pending.
I wasn’t asked that; the question asked was why it was taking more than 2 days to get an answer about a loan. But if you want to know, there were errors on the CSS profile that seemed to us to be the only logical reason behind the FA decision. The way the post was worded also intimated that we are up to something. I see that many on this comment board have thousands upon thousands of posts, so I can only assume that they spend a considerable amount of time analyzing and sharing their insight into this process. That’s why we posted here initially - to try and get some insight. We’re just people trying to help our kid get to the right school. I did not expect to have both our motives and honesty questioned.
I was NOT questioning your motives.
The real decision is whether you want to take out this amount of loans…whatever that is.
When you go back to your lending company or bank, ask them if you will be able to take out additional loans in that amount for the subsequent years. They should be able to give you an idea…and you can then go from there.
Remember, college isn’t for just one year. So make sure your financial plan is a sustainable one for all four years.
I am not sure if OP is still going forward with the ED2 plan. You better check the agreement you"ve signed. You can only apply to one ED school and your kid has already received one ED admission offer. The insufficient financial aid offer allows you to be released from the ED binding if you choose to, but it does not allow you to apply to another ED school in the mean time until the original ED has been withdrawn.
@billcsho he applied regular decision…not ED 2
You mentioned your older son received more generous need based aid at his college. In other threads you indicate he got off of the waitlist at University of Chicago…which is fabulous.
But remember…Chicago uses only the FAFSA and a short Chicago financial aid form…no Profile…t determine the awarding of institutional need based aid. Perhaps this is the reason you saw a large difference in the aid awarded from the ED1 school…as the FAFSA would not consider your business if below a certain number of employees. It would not include any assessment of home equity in your primary residence. The Chicago family contribution is usually pretty close to the FAFSA EFC.
GWU (is that where your seicond kiddo applied ED 1?) uses the Profile to determine the awarding of institutional need based aid.
This will somehow work out but you are looking at a LOT of loans if you plan to fund a GWU undergrad degree primarily with loans. It’s a very expensive college per year.
@thumper1 U Chicago uses the CSS profile. We’ve filled it out every year. We also knew from the past 3 years what their use of the CSS profile has led us to pay there.
The ED1 school is American. We had researched American’s FA policies and read that American typically meets 90% of aid. Knowing what we had to pay using the CSS profile over the past 3 years, what the FAFSA indicated was our EFC, and what American’s own NPC said, we felt we had a pretty good understanding of what we would have to pay. We were OK with paying 10% more over what we had been paying at UC. We did NOT expect that they would say we would have to pay full boat. From our conversations with the FA office, it relates to the fact that they perceive a business as an indication of wealth - no matter that it does not generate much in the way of income; no matter that there is virtually no liquidity. We know now that other schools do not necessarily use the information from the CSS profile in the same way, so that other schools do not necessarily associate owning a business with having the means for affording the full tuition. Since schools do not tell you how they use the CSS profile, it is impossible to know what you can expect to pay. The NPC is supposed to do that, but failed miserably in our situation. In my opinion it is a completely unfair practice.
The RD school is GWU.
American is a great school…but it does not meet full need for all accepted students.
Your Chicago kid might be in the last class that used the Profile. They no longer require it…my apologies on that. But Chicago DOES guarantee to meet full need…while American does not.
Also, you mentioned merit aid at American. Do they allow stacking of need based and merit aid? If not…the merit aid reduced your need…and therefore reduced your need based aid.
So your net cost at American is not full price? Is that correct?
GWU, as you know, is VERY costly. Like in the over $70,000 a year range. Maybe the money will be forthcoming…does he have other RD applications ready to submit…or already submitted?
We knew American does not always meet full need. As I mentioned, we researched it and found it typically meets 90%. We had also heard that AU typically gives better aid to GWU, and that GWU is not need blind when it comes to admissions.
I don’t know if AU stacks aid or not…all I know is he received a bit of merit aid before they ever processed the financial aid package and that from our conversations with the financial aid office, the lack of grant money doesn’t seem to relate to the merit aid at all. They expect us to pay far more than 110% of what we’ve been paying at UC.
He has other RD applications ready to submit, pending resolution of his status at AU. He also was accepted EA to the honors program at George Mason. As you may have guessed by now, his focus is international affairs. His goal is to be in the foreign service. So really AU and GWU are the best schools for him in that regard.