Should i even bother applying for financial aid?

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>I just found out my family’s income is about 330,000. Does this mean no financial aid? Am i better off spending my time applying for scholarships instead? I have 2 younger brothers if it makes any difference.</p>

2

<p>Income isn’t the only thing considered by the formula, so if there are other factors in your family’s financial history that make paying for college difficult, you might consider applying anyway. It can’t do any harm.</p>

<p>But applying for scholarships would also be a great use of your time. :)</p>

3

<p>You may also want to consider using your time doing some research and get it published. My older daughter also didn’t applied for finacial aid when she was an undergraduate at MIT. But the research paper she published during her high school year land her nice research positions (UROP) throughout her entire undergraduate year. She was told that there were 40+ students applied, all upper class and many are very well qualified, but they really like her paper and pick her. Since we also paid all her expense, she end up got a small fortune saved by the time she graduated.</p>

4

<p>^^Oh, so that’s how she did it. Cough. Cough.</p>

5

<p>There are several calculators on the internet that you could use to estimate your financial aid. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml[/url]”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My guess is that you probably won’t qualify at that income level.</p>

6

<p>it doesn’t hurt to try</p>

7

<p>I do agree, for the record, that financial aid or no, it’s a great idea to get a campus job or a UROP as early as possible. I had a job from the first day of freshman year, and I was able to pay for my food and entertainment, as well as a shiny new desktop computer. I also graduated with a nice healthy nest egg.</p>

<p>There are a lot of jobs on campus – I worked in the foreign language library freshman year, then took a paid UROP for the next three years. You can also be paid for working at a dorm front desk or in one of the administrative offices. Campus minimum wage is (I think) currently $9/hr, and many UROPs make substantially more.</p>

8

<p>Seriously don’t apply. You’ll shoot yourself when you realize how much time you wasted figuring out stuff when you don’t get anything from it…and trust me, you won’t get anything from it.</p>