Oh, friends, my heart aches for you who are reeling from the cost of college. I think there is so much misinformation out there, and too many people assume that financial aid will take care of them at the college of their choice. We need to talk about this before you make your list of colleges to consider.
One of the important aspects of a college list is to find some school choices that will be affordable. What this looks like varies greatly depending upon the student, the location, and the family situation. Some colleges give out a lot of need-based aid. Many do not. Some colleges give out a lot of merit-based aid. Others do not. The criteria are all different, so you have to seek out a college that fits your student and your family.
If your grades and scores are highly competitive, but your income is low, there are big schools that offer lots of aid. Here is a list of colleges that will meet your “full need.” https://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-that-offer-complete-financial-aid. This means that if you calculate your financial need with the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, you will pay your EFC (Expected Family Contribution) and these colleges will pay the rest. Now, your EFC may be more than you think you can pay, but at least they will meet you that far. Some of them do it with no loans, and then the loans are still available if you can’t come up with the EFC. These are mostly schools that are more difficult to get into. So, if you can get in, they give you financial aid up to your “need,” but it is hard to get in.
Note that this means that most colleges do not give financial aid that meets your need, not even what the FAFSA says is your need. And the Profile may say that you can pay more than the FAFSA says that you can pay. I think it is a common misconception that financial aid is out there to pay what we cannot pay. Most of the colleges will offer you federal Pell Grants, federal Direct loans, federal Work Study, and Parent PLUS loans, and say that they are giving you financial aid. This is not money from the college, but money from the government or loans from banks. Those great amounts of money you imagined from the college financial aid department just may not exist. Some colleges have large amounts of donated money to hand out. Some do not. Some use most of it for “merit aid” based on your scores and grades or based on a competition.
Most colleges have a Net Cost Estimator tool. Look on the financial aid page. They vary, and some are more accurate than others, but they can give you an idea of the possible affordability of a school. I don’t take a school off of the list at the beginning just because it doesn’t look affordable, because you never know when your student might come up with a scholarship that makes it all work. But I try to make sure that there are at least one or two schools on the list that have a good chance of being affordable. This could be a local community college, a university close enough to live at home and commute, or a school that gives a lot of aid.
For example, some of my older students had scores high enough that there were colleges that would automatically offer them a full ride. Most of those were not colleges that they were interested in attending, but at least one went on the list. Then there were colleges that had big competitive scholarships. You never know which one you might get, so several of those went on the list.
One student wasn’t in the ballpark for those huge awards, so she had a completely different list of schools. We had to hunt a little harder to find schools with awards that would fit her stats. You can use sites like Princeton Review to look up the 25/75 percentile scores on the ACT and SAT. This tells you that the bottom 25% of the students at this school score less that this score; the middle 50% of students scored between these scores; and the top 25% scored above that score. If you can find a school where your student will be in the top 25%, then they have a better chance of getting good scholarships.
Then we went through a LOT of Net Cost Calculators. We found a little gem nearby. SBUniv.edu is a small Christian college about an hour from us that offers a lot of aid. They are generous with both merit-based and need-based aid. This is one of the few colleges that seemed to offer us their own need-based aid in addition to the government programs. Their application stays open a long time, and is free, so it might not be too late to apply. The Scholars Days have deadlines, so try to apply early for those extra honors scholarships if you qualify. Much of the other aid might still be available into the spring. I think that they do rolling admissions, and the money is available until it runs out.
Some state universities always go on our list. We found one that offers free application and fairly low cost. If your ACT is 28 or above, they waive the out-of-state tuition. That is something to look for at various schools. Many have a level at which the out-of-state fees will be waived. This one also has automatic merit scholarships based on your scores and grades. We found one in a nearby state that waived out-of-state tuition for residents of our state. Look at the flagship state schools in your state. Then look at smaller state schools in your area, and look at state schools in nearby states – or faraway states if you like. You may find some that fit your student’s needs, have a cozy feel, and meet your need.
By the end of the college application season, hopefully you will have at least some schools on your list that your family can afford. They may not be the school at the top of your child’s wish list, but there should be some reasonable options that will work. We tell the student all year that their choices may be limited by what we can afford. We try not to let them fall too much in love with a school that will not be affordable, but keep their options open to include schools that will fall within our budget. They understand that getting scholarships is necessary, and finding the affordable place is the goal. And they have often fallen in love with that school that offered them a lot of money!
What to do if you got to the spring and don’t have an affordable option? Many schools have application deadlines or scholarship deadlines of Jan 1 or Feb 1. But there are still some colleges out there that are still taking applications. Or your student can take a year off to either work or go to the local community college, and then apply to a different set of schools next year. Be aware that going to a community college can mean that your student will no longer be considered an entering freshman, and thus will not be eligible for freshman scholarships at a 4-year college next year. Some have a limit, like 24 credit hours earned after high school graduation. Look carefully at the requirements of 4-yr colleges you are considering before choosing the community college route.
Another alternative is to find more scholarships to go to one of the colleges already on your list. This is getting too long, but there are outside scholarship sites that still have money available. Have them work on applying to some of those and see if some more funding is available. We can talk more about those later.
There are always options, and this will work out. You can find a way!