This is the time of year when many teenagers are excited about their college acceptances, while their parents are terrified about how to pay the tab.
Of course, the best way to avoid this difficult situation is for a family to have a clear idea before submitting applications of how much specific schools will cost them. The sticker price is often meaningless, but the net cost, which is calculated after subtracting any expected financial aid or merit awards, is what’s relevant. The easiest way to generate this critical figure is by using each institution’s net price calculator.
Many parents still don’t know that net price calculators exist, even though the federal government mandated private and public colleges and universities to post them on their websites beginning in 2011
More commonly, parents simply allow their teenagers to apply wherever they want. In doing so, they hope that their target schools will love their children so much that a $90,000-a-year price tag will shrink significantly after a college awards them.
For parents whose let’s-just-see strategy has landed them in potential financial trouble, there is a Plan B. It is possible for families to squeeze more money out of a school by appealing underwhelming awards.
Here are eight things to consider when appealing an award:
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An obvious reason to appeal is if your clients have experienced changes in their finances since assistance was requested. The death or disability of a parent is an obvious one. A natural disaster that has damaged or destroyed a residence is another solid reason to appeal, as is the loss of employment, high medical bills, caring for elderly parents or a change in marital status.
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It’s important to appreciate that you don’t need a reason to appeal for more financial assistance. Many schools will seriously consider your appeal regardless of your financial situation. Families who did not qualify for need-based aid and are seeking larger merit scholarships can successfully appeal for better awards.
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Schools actually rely on sophisticated enrollment management software that attempts to pinpoint the award that a family will accept. The goal of many schools, and especially private ones, is to offer the lowest award possible to a student that a family will accept. Consequently, there is often room to sweeten the awards.
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The reason why appealing is often worthwhile is that most schools don’t meet their freshman admission goals. Admission officers are highly competitive with their peer institutions, which is why colleges agree to sweeten their offers. Families should take advantage of this competitive environment by playing schools off each other. If the school that a student covets has offered a less generous award, parents should show the admission office any higher offers and ask it to match or exceed them.
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Parents need to keep in mind that highly ranked schools are much more likely to match or exceed a competitor’s award if it’s a peer institution. For instance, the University of Southern California is known to be receptive to appeals if a student receives a superior offer from a direct competitor, such as New York University or UCLA. Washington University in St. Louis is often willing to reconsider an award if an institution that is also highly ranked made the offer.
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Don’t assume appealing for more money must stop after May 1, which traditionally has been the day many schools require a deposit to hold a spot for the new school year. Whether a student can secure more money late in the admissions cycle depends on whether the school is nervous about meeting its enrollment targets. This is going to sound crazy, but I’ve had admissions officers tell me that sometimes they will reach out to accepted students who haven’t committed yet and entice them with an additional award that was completely made up.
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When seeking more money, it’s important to see how a student’s award compares with others. For instance, if a teenager received a $14,000 merit award from Fairfield University in Connecticut, that is significantly below the average merit scholarship of $23,408 that freshmen receive. It is also important to assess just how generous a school is with need-based aid when seeking more help. The average need-based award at Fairfield, for example, was recently only $30,784, which is a pittance considering that the university’s sticker price is $83,010. FYI, two reasons this school isn’t generous are that it is located just an hour from New York City and attracts a lot of wealthy students who aren’t deterred by the high price.
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It’s easy to find the statistics on merit and need-based aid by heading to the website of CollegeData. In the search box, type the name of any school, then click its Financials link. Scroll down to the section that profiles the financial aid that freshmen and all undergraduates receive. In this section, you can discover the average need-based and merit awards, along with how many students received these discounts. You will also see what the average percentage of need that a school meets for students who need financial help. Absorbing these numbers will give your clients a better idea of what further aid that they might be able to squeeze out of a college.
