<p>My D is applying to some of the colleges that made it in the Princeton Review’s top 20 in the category “students happy with financial aid.” Leaving aside HYPS, can anyone elaborate what “happy with financial aid” might look like?</p>
<p>Put differently, having done some of the EFC calculators, I’m wondering whether there are schools that don’t expect you to pay what these calculators project as EFC. Does “happy with financial aid” mean that even those families with high EFCs managed to get some help with the high cost of college?</p>
<p>In our family’s experience, “happy with financial aid” means that we are paying less than our FAFSA EFC. Our daughter applied to five LACs, and was accepted at four. Three of those offered financial aid packages that met our EFC. Beloit College—which I believe is on the Princeton Review list you mentioned—offered a package with a bottom line that was about $5,500 less than our EFC. It was a mixture of scholarship, grant, loan and campus employment. Our daughter is now a freshman at Beloit and having a wonderful time.</p>
<p>I think happy with FA is a relative thing as there are some people who feel that paying anything is paying too much and others who feel that as long as they are not taking on what they beleive is an exorbitant amount of debt that it is all good.</p>
<p>There are some people who will be unhappy because their kid did not receive what someone else’s kid did. There are just too many variables and personally I would take the Princeton review rating with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>My D just graduated from a school that is on the PR list for students unhappy with FA . We were extremely please with our packages year over year, D received a great education and has finished with very little debt.</p>
<p>My son goes to Tulane which is #13 on the list (I just looked it up). </p>
<p>WHen I examined his financial aid package, it looked as if our need was based on our federal EFC plus about 5% of the equity in our home. Then they probably “gapped” us by about 2K. When my son received a 6K outside scholarship they applied part of it to the gap, then eliminated a $3500 loan. His institutional aid was never touched. </p>
<p>So, in my opinion happy with financial aid meant that it was fair and logical, but not necessarily above and beyond what I would have hoped for.</p>
<p>Randolph College is #20 on the list, yet it has had severe financial difficulty in the past few years and sold off part of it’s art collect to firm up its fiscal condition. As a private college in Virginia, RC students who live in Virginia can get a $3200 tuition assistance grant from the state. This may, in part, account for a large number of students being happy about their FA.</p>
<p>It is an important thing because it also means students in general are happy with aid. There are some schools that give good initial offers and then tighten up later. You get a lot of unhappy student at schools that do that sort of thing.</p>
<p>For our family, being happy with financial aid means that our need is met with grants, rather than with a high amount of loans. The key is that we understand what “need” is … we are paying a lot of money, but it is fair in the scheme of things.</p>
<p>For our family, happy with financial aid means two things: </p>
<ol>
<li>No loans</li>
<li>FA office that is easy to work with</li>
</ol>
<p>Even if you don’t get all the money you want, if the office seems helpful and responsive, that’s a positive thing. On the other hand, a lot of money tied to jumping through hoops, unrealistic GPA maintenance requirements (merit aid requiring the student keep a 3.8), or decreasing aid after freshman year – stuff like that can mean that even a reasonable offer seems sour.</p>
<p>We are happy with our FA. We received an institutional grant (no merit aid at D’s school), Federal Work Study (very easy for her to invent her own job!) and a Robert Byrd (merit) scholarship. Our EFC is reasonable and quite doable. Grandma has a 529 which we haven’t needed to tap into as of yet, and will probably use that D’s senior year. Since it is in Grandma’s name, it does not appear as a parental or student asset.</p>
<p>I could have been happier with the FA offered at the schools my D did not choose to go to. The schools that took the CSS Profile offered way more FA then FAFSA only. More grant money and less loan. In other words they met more of my need. But alas, D is going to her dream school that gave her less than what we would have liked.</p>
<p>The issue for most people asking about FA on CC is for the first year only. As goaliedad sums it up, “Aid Granted > Expected Aid Granted”. The FA granted in the first year sets up an expectation for subsequent years. The students surveyed have an opinion based upon multiple years of FA at a school. If the school stiffs their returning students, they will not be happy. It could be argued that the students’ opinions are heavily weighted toward the most recent FA awarded.</p>
<p>I think it is important to get some idea of what FA in years 2, 3, and 4 will look like. This may sound like a pipe dream since understanding the first-year FA at a particular school and its implications upon the family budget and student debt can be daunting. However, it can be done, and should be done after all the acceptances have been received. Most of the times it is a no brainer, but sometimes schools that are $2000 apart in the first year can end up $20,000 apart after 4 years.</p>
<p>Edit: the multi-year scenarios are especially important when more than one child will be attending college.</p>
<p>standrews: I agree about the multi-year issue. I actually had a little freak out about my son’s aid right before he accepted. Someone I know from an EC I coach started ranting at me after I mention son being accepted to his school, about how they stiffed returning students, and a student we both knew had gotten such a bad returning package that her parents had to sell their home and move into an apartment. I wrote the FA director and flat out said, “I was told the school will reduce aid in future years. Is this true?” I got a clear response outlining what conditions would cause a change, and what income increase would prompt a reevaluation. True to her word, for sophomore year aid was the same, and incidentals stipend increased $250 a semester. </p>
<p>I also talked to the student who had supposedly been cut off, and she told me that I had been misinformed, and that her family had sold their home and moved, but the financial situation was more complicated and wasn’t the result of the FA office reducing her aid.</p>