Examples from student questionnaires

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1 Susan Examples from student questionnaires Cost/Financial Aid: (*Adapted from Steven Antonoff, College Match) On a scale of 1 to 5, indicate the extent to which cost and availability of financial aid is a consideration in your choice of college. Cost is a major factor Cost is a minor factor Financial aid is important Financial aid is not important Explain your cost concerns and describe communication you have had with your parents concerning college costs. Vicki Finances. I will be asking your parents about this too, but as far as you know, will the cost of college and/or the availability of financial aid or merit scholarships affect your choice of college? Susan Examples from parent questionnaires Please comment on these other considerations in choosing a college. Cost (how much you are able and willing to pay per year): Vicki College finances: Do you expect college affordability to play a role in deciding where your child goes to college? If the answer is yes, then we need to know two things before starting the college search. a. How much you are prepared to spend on college each year: b. Your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), according to both the federal and institutional methodologies. Federal EFC: Institutional EFC: (If you don t know one or both EFC s, please use this calculator: bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/paying-your-share/expected-family-contributioncalculator).

2 Susan Examples from students lists of college criteria Parents would like to pay at most $35k to 40k per year. Cost is not a consideration. Cost is an important factor. Would like the combination of need based and merit aid to result in a net cost of about $30k. Target cost of attendance is approximately $35k per year. Merit aid is highly desired. Vicki Merit aid would be desirable, not strictly necessary. Financial fit criteria: Good need-based aid. Noncustodial parent information is not required. Home equity is not counted or limited. It will not take 5-6 years to graduate as a science major. Affordable. Need to clarify financial fit criteria based on results of EFC calculator and net price calculators, to know whether we re looking for good need-based aid, good merit aid, or both. Cost is not a factor. Dear [Parents] - Example of an asking parents to check their EFC s and run NPC s I'd like to ask you to run an Expected Family Contribution calculator before our meeting. It usually takes about 15 minutes to run this calculator. It's anonymous, and you can use ballpark numbers for this year or real numbers from last year. If your income and assets are pretty much the same this year as last year, it s easier to use last year s numbers because you can look at your tax return. Even if you use this year s estimated numbers, approximate results are still very helpful. This is the calculator: expected-family-contribution-calculator The calculator will give you two EFC's: federal and institutional. We'll be interested in both EFC s. If there is a big difference, it may have an impact on which colleges might be a financial fit for [your child]. If you own a home, I'd like to ask you to run the calculator twice: one time when you include your home equity in the parental assets section, and one time when you exclude it. Your federal EFC won't change, but your institutional EFC may change. If this turns out to make a big difference again, that may have an impact on which colleges [your child] decides to apply to.

3 (Some colleges count all of your home equity; some limit it or don't count it.) To run the calculator a second time, you don't have to start over; you can go back to the finances input page and just change the home equity number to zero. Here are some quick tips for running the calculator: - When it asks you to select a formula (FM or IM), select "both." - When it asks for income, be sure use your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income). - One of the questions asks about untaxed income. Include any pre-tax income you contributed last year to a 401k or other retirement fund. If you made any other pre-tax contributions last year (for example, to a health savings account), include that too. - In parental assets, do not include any savings you have in 401k, IRA, or other protected retirement accounts. - In assets, do include any equity you have in second homes, rental property, land, etc. - Savings in 529 plans are included in parent assets. - If you are divorced or separated, each parent should run the calculator. If you have remarried, make sure you re reporting your joint income and assets. Also, I suggest that you run the Net Price Calculator at several colleges [your child] is thinking about for example, [x, y, and z]. You can find a pointer to the NPC for any college on the college s undergraduate financial aid website.

4 Examples of colleges to fit different situations These are just a few ideas to get you started build your own lists of favorites. Also, keep in mind that colleges policies and practices sometimes change in significant ways from one year to the next, so you need to update your own research every year. Examples: Lower-cost schools that may be affordable without aid Elon University University of Minnesota Warren Wilson College Directional state universities, such as Western Washington University Examples: Potential for large merit awards for exceptional students Davidson College Kenyon College University of Southern California Syracuse University Washington University St. Louis National Merit Scholars: Arizona State University, University of Alabama Examples: Good merit aid for strong students Case Western Reserve University Clark University College of Wooster Dickinson College Kenyon College Mount Holyoke College Rhodes College University of Rochester Trinity University (TX) Tulane University Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Examples: Merit aid for B/B+ students: Eckerd College Goucher College Pacific Lutheran University Roanoke College Rollins College Seattle University Wheaton College (MA) Willamette University

5 Examples: Public universities with merit aid for out-of-state students: College of Charleston Indiana University Bloomington Michigan State University University of Pittsburgh University of South Carolina Check regional agreements, such as the Western Undergraduate Exchange, Academic Common Market (south), Midwest Student Exchange, New England Regional Student Program. Examples: Sometimes meet full need for first generation, low income, URM students Augsburg College College of Saint Benedict Kalamazoo College McDaniel College Ripon College Examples: Colleges that meet 100% of demonstrated need for all students College of the Holy Cross Gettysburg College Franklin and Marshall College Lafayette College University of Richmond St. Olaf College Wake Forest University Examples: Colleges that meet a high percentage of demonstrated need on average Beloit College Bucknell University Clark University College of the Atlantic College of Wooster Denison University Dickinson College Rhodes College Whitman College Examples: Colleges that use the CSS PROFILE but limit or do not use home equity Do not use home equity: MIT (if income under $100k), Princeton University, Whitman College Limited: Colgate (capped at 2 times family income), Lehigh (capped at 2.5 times family income), Muhlenberg (capped at family income), Stanford (capped at 1.2 times family income)

6 How to use CollegeData.com to find useful info about college finances On the CollegeData website ( use College 411, then College Match Search, to find the profile of the college you re looking for. The profile has six tabs go to the one labeled Money Matters. Don t use this site for tuition data; usually more up-to-date info on tuition is available in the College Board (BigFuture) profiles or on the college s own website. But you can find useful info here about several things: Percentage of need met (on average) for need-based aid. Percentage of students without need who receive merit aid. Average merit award size. Use the college s website to look for details on merit scholarship criteria and the variety of award sizes.

7 How to use College Navigator to find useful info about college finances On the College Navigator website ( type in the name of the college to find the profile of the school you re looking for. When you re working with a student with a very low EFC and high need, you can look in the Net Price section to see how much families from different income bands end up paying at this school. Some schools expect low-income students to pay as much as high-income students. Others offer low-income students a relatively low net price. This net price includes the student s self-help components of student loans and work-study, as well as the parents expected contribution.

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