Hopefully this is the right section of the forum to post this question in—really wasn’t sure whether to post this in reverse chance me or wherever.
I am currently a student at Columbia School of General Studies. Unfortunately, there really is no way I can afford this school anymore.
I am looking for a list of T25 (or similarly ranked schools) that offer full financial aid for transfer students. Trying to find this information online can be pretty confusing, because a number of schools claim to meet full need-based aid, but I have read plenty of posts online where people claim that some of these same schools actually aren’t guaranteeing full need-based aid for their transfer students.
I am an older non-traditional student who is independent and very low-income.
Right now, the current list of schools I am sending transfer applications to are: Georgetown University, Northwestern, USC and UPenn.
I have a 3.7 GPA at Columbia, so I have no clue what my chances are like at any of these schools. For Northwestern and USC, I am applying to the journalism schools, and I have a letter of recommendation from a former journalism instructor of mine who is a famous Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (which I hope will increase my chances of being admitted).
If you identify as a woman, check out the women’s college. I think some not only have full aid for transfers, but they also have programs for non-traditional students.
I have 101 credits—so I am literally 23 units short of graduating. My Columbia GS credits are not my only credits. I also have 60 credits from a CSU that I attended before transferring to Columbia.
I did work and attend part-time for awhile but unfortunately I never made enough money to make that a financially viable option. I know some GS students who do this but almost all of them were able to do it because they lived with family in NYC or NJ, which saves a lot of money. I don’t have any family in NYC.
Curious as to why you are skeptical about Georgetown meeting financial need? I did apply there once before and I asked them a lot of questions about financial aid—they said that full financial aid was met even for transfer students. I have Googled it a bit and I haven’t heard any complaints about Georgetown’s financial aid.
Thanks, looks like Yale’s Eli Whitney program does meet 100% financial need. I did apply to Yale in the past and was rejected. I am not very confident that my GPA is high enough to be admitted to Yale but I really appreciate the suggestion.
Wow, you’re really close to graduating. If you transfer, some of those courses may not transfer. How have you managed to pay for school up to this point? Has it been through student loans, grants, endowments? If you were getting these in the past, I’m surprised the school wouldnt give you enough to finish these last 23 units. Did something fall through? Or are your debts just getting high?
Most colleges require a student to spend the last two years in attendance, so you still have to attend two years of college if you transfer. For example, at Georgetown, the max transferable credits is 60 units, which is half the number needed for a degree. Transfer of Credit | Office of Undergraduate Admissions | Georgetown University
Regarding Georgetown transfer FA, I have seen a number of transfer packages that aren’t as generous as at other schools. Schools do have different ways to calculate need. All you can do is apply and see.
Have you considered working and attending part-time at Columbia GS to finish up? I’m not sure I understand why that’s not an option? Aren’t you paying housing and food costs now? How have you been paying for Columbia GS?
I was paying for it through some Columbia scholarships, grants and endowments, alongside private loans. I have been unable to get someone to co-sign a loan for my last two semesters here and I have been denied a private student loan when applying on my own.
Been paying for Columbia GS through scholarships from Columbia, grants, etc alongside private student loans which I can no longer get anyone to co-sign for this semester.
Attending part-time is fine, but I have had a lot of difficulty finding a job. I did have a decent job through Columbia (not work-study), but they laid off all of the student workers in that department, so that definitely hurt me financially.
The financial aid office wasn’t able to offer any suggestions? You should be able to file a FASFA as an independent and get a federal loan for the difference. That’s what I did in college. No co-signer needed that way.
If you don’t have a visa/work permit issue, it shouldn’t be hard finding a job. Literally EVERY storefront on Broadway, Columbus, Amsterdam has a “help wanted” sign hanging in the window.
It doesn’t need to be your forever career-- it’s just a way to pay the bills until you graduate. And if you want an on-campus job, it doesn’t need to be Columbia- Hunter, Pace, NYU, CUNY…
The fastest and cheapest way for you to get a BA is to stay where you are (so you don’t lose any time or credits) and hunker down. DC is almost as expensive to live in as NY so you aren’t gaining anything there; Evanston will be moderately cheaper, Philadelphia is somewhat cheaper. But none of these are inexpensive places to live.
Why not ask your famous Pulitzer winning journalist to help you land an editing, indexing, fact checking, writing job? That would be more valuable to you at this point than a letter of recommendation to a college you won’t be able to afford.
Transferring to a private university is a mixed bag of worms. It’s impossible to know how without applying and finding out how much they’re willing to give. Just a thought, it may be an option to transfer to your in-state university. This would pretty much give you the best access to affordability. Job opportunities are really about your major than the name brand of the school.
Well, I am trying to set up a meeting with the financial aid director to discuss all this, because the financial aid advisor I have been assigned since I started Columbia is not very helpful.
I do file my FAFSA as an independent and get federal loans. Federal undergrad loans, however, are capped (I can’t remember at what amount), so I can’t take out federal loans for all of the money that I need for school.
The federal caps are your friends… especially if you are planning a relatively low paying field once you graduate. That will mean you’ve got a realistic plan and timeframe for paying them off. Hooray!
With a 15 hour a week job- either locally or some work from home editing/indexing job, can you bridge the gap?
My professor did actually find me some freelance journalism work. The problem is that the media industry has been hit very hard right now (there are massive layoffs), so I haven’t been able to find consistent freelance work. He even got my resume to an editorial recruiter at a very big publication—unfortunately, the editorial recruiter said that they are only hiring for senior level positions right now (they aren’t even hiring interns this year)!
Can you break down a bit more the parts that are financially untenable, maybe that will help us find you an answer. As a life long Manhattanite I understand how crushingly expensive it is to live in the city.
Some thoughts that come to mind are: Do you have a cheap place outside of the area where you can live and maybe take the remaining credits online? Or do a mix of cheaper college credits in that location in combo with CU online credits? Just how short are you on the income side? If you need an extra 1k/mo it’s more manageable than needing 10k/mo etc.
This is a canary in the coal mine situation so you are lucky to have a plugged in professor. The job market won’t be better when you graduate- so better to understand what you are up against now.
Map out your long term plan… still time to pivot to a more investor relations/corporate communications/political comm’s/speechwriting focus since those sectors are still hiring strong writers, researchers/journalist types.