<p>yesterday DD2 got her first actual FA paperwork from a school.<br>
the award letter lists tuition, fee, and room and board.</p>
<p>I pulled out DD1’s award from last year. They list (across the top, in breakdown for on-campus, off campus and commuter)
Tuition, books, fees and personal expenses, transportation and room and board.
books are a big expense, and in this case we are talking air travel back and forth as a transportation cost for DD2 to attend this school.</p>
<p>Which is the more normal award breakdown? </p>
<p>I’d also like to figure out how study abroad costs work out when the student gets merit aid, and need based aid.</p>
<p>D is applying for study aborad. In the course of her app, she is to give them ballpark figures of cost of transportation, etc. They will be used in figuring her FA for next year. At Amherst, it is done separately, once the programs are established along with costs.</p>
<p>my concern for right now is, do most schools figure books and transportation into the financial aid costs/award numbers or do they leave them out.
I have one of each here. Obviously the one without did so to make it look cheaper to go there. grrrr.</p>
<p>This is a great question for us first timers! So what’ the word - is it more or less typical to include the expenses costs (books, travel etc) in the FA package? </p>
<p>I would have never thought to look for this.</p>
<p>Schools usually have a “cost of attendance” and that factors into their finaid. However, remember that any finaid over the cost of tuition is considered taxable income for the student. </p>
<p>You need to check the school policy re: study abroad.</p>
<p>DD1’s school as 3840 for books/fees/personal expenses, and 1400 for transportation. (NYC, metro card costs I assume)
DD2’s first package has nothing allocated for that. Does this mean it’s really over $5,000 more to attend then the package is showing?</p>
<p>now if I could only take away the mention of study abroad in the title - I hope I wasn’t so unclear people will skip this. duh.</p>
<p>THe school website should list total cost of attendance - the award letter does not need to. They are showing you how much money they are wiling to give/loan to you. You can do the arithmetic yourself to figure your total costs. In our case - we only care about tuition & fees, and room and board. We put our kids in charge of the “personal expenses, books, etc.” They can work over the summer and/or durin the school year to earn money for those expenses.</p>
<p>total cost of attendance differs from school to school. some schools may have required fees that others do not. some may have one time fees (orientation, etc.) for first year students and some may not. what you have to do is to list each required expense for each school for the first year and then compare…then take the total costs for first year attendance minus any institutional grant and/or scholarship monies. do not include loans. this will give you your out of pocket for that school for comparison purposes. hope this makes sense. it becomes much easier once you can compare the actual financial aid packages that have been offered to the student.</p>
<p>thanks! I’m trying to figure out how to get the numbers set up immediately after the papers with FA come in here. She’s admitted to 4 schools - two she decided against already, and she is waiting to hear from 5 others.
She has only read about most of the schools, and we want her to be able to attend Admitted student events, but only at places we can afford.
(We thought she was applying only to schools we could afford with FA but it may turn out not to be true.)</p>
In our case - we only care about tuition & fees, and room and board. We put our kids in charge of the “personal expenses, books, etc.” They can work over the summer and/or durin the school year to earn money for those expenses.</p>