UC Blue and Gold Opportunity

Paying for College
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<p>Hi everyone, I have a question about the Blue and Gold Opportunity that the UCs offer, actually financial aid with the UCs in general when you don’t qualify for Blue and Gold but you’re close. The only requirements as I understand it is that you must be a California resident attending a UC and make less than $80,000 per year. My child qualified for this for 2014-2015 and we’re very thankful for that but finances are tight and my husband has been offered overtime at work. This would put us over $80000 but not my much. We’re wondering if it’s worth it to lose that grant in order to be a little better off each week or if we’re better off continuing to tighten our belts? Because our child will be living on campus there is still a great deal of loans that we are taking and increasing that amount doesn’t seem like a good plan but I wondered if we would still get close to that $12000 grant if our income went up to say $82000? or even $85000? </p>

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<p>sorry for the spelling and grammatical errors! I don’t see a way to edit my post</p>

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<p>This doesn’t answer your question, but you can have an additional $2,500 cash per year when you claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit. Just make sure you pay $4,000 of tuition and books (Qualified Education Expenses) with non tax-advantaged dollars (loans or out of pocket is what you should use to pay QEE) in each calendar year.</p>

<p>Also see IRS Publication 970:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p970--2013.pdf”>http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p970--2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So instead of working overtime and increasing your income from $80,000 to $82,000; you likely can count on the education tax credit instead for $2,500 as a way to increase your cash flow without an detriment to qualifying for the type of aid you reference in your original post.</p>

<p>In anticipation of the tax credit, you could even consider increasing the federal withholding exemptions on Form W-4 now which will increase the take home pay now.</p>

<p>Consult your tax advisor.</p>

4

<p>Is it the Middle Class Scholarship Program?:</p>

<p><a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/paying-for-uc/glossary/middle-class-scholarship/index.html”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/paying-for-uc/glossary/middle-class-scholarship/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Use the NPC with the new projected aid. The UCs have UC aid for those who dont qualify for B&G, but are close.</p>

<p>which UC is this?</p>

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<p>@mom2collegekids Berkeley And forgive my ignorance but what is NPC?</p>

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<p>Net Price Calculator - each college should have one on its website.</p>

<p><a href=“Financial Aid Estimator - UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office”>https://saservices.berkeley.edu/calculator/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Wow my brain has really moved on from all the stuff we really loomed over during the application phase! Thanks for the tip on using the NPC, I can see how that would continue to be a useful tool! Thank you @madison85 and @mom2collegekids!</p>

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<p>Net price calculator experiments indicate that there is usually not a “cliff” in financial aid at $80,000 – meaning that the BGO promise is just a way of marketing the UC financial aid policies (which are relatively good for California residents). But run the net price calculator for you own situation with hypothetical levels of income.</p>