Atlanta Weather

| Traffic

Search
Get Schooled

How to negotiate better college aid packages

8:00 pm November 1, 2009, by Maureen Downey

Having two kids in college, I always read tips on how to maximize financial aid. (I have two more due to start college in eight years, so I will be worrying about this issue for a long time.)

I can’t say that I have had great success in cajoling more money out of colleges. We did approach my freshman son’s private college to see if it would consider matching better aid packages from similar schools and that led to a slight increase.

I would be curious if any of you have fared better or have advice for parents whose children are applying to colleges now. Certainly, parents today need all the help they can get.

I found that colleges looking to attract top students are more likely to offer aid than colleges that already have more than enough top students knocking down their doors.

These tips come from Jerry Slavonia of CampusExplorer

Tip #1:  Leverage your strong points and position yourself. There isn’t going to be a discussion about tuition options until you’ve been accepted.  Give yourself a couple of good options, all of which will suit you.  Then make the school want you!  A significant number of students are accepted but never attend.  Private colleges need students to survive.  Leverage that knowledge.

#2:  Do your homework (this time). Do as much research as you can on each of your top selections.  Try to narrow your focus so you can dig in on each school.  How’s the weather during winter?  Do you like the surrounding community?  Do you believe they offer the areas of study you are most interested in?  How much is it going to cost?  Tuition dependant colleges (private schools) will discuss tuition arrangements with you once you’ve been accepted.

#3:  Give yourself options:  You can’t negotiate without leverage.  Options = leverage.

#4:  Be straightforward: Once you’ve been accepted, establish a relationship with the admissions staff.  Identify your target admissions person.  Don’t beat around the bush.  Tell them you want as many options as they have to lower your out of pocket tuition expense in order to make your decision on where you’ll attend.

#5 Be realistic: If the schools published tuition is $30,000 annually, you’re not going to knock off $20,000.  But you may find yourself knocking ten, even twenty percent off by being persistent and working the system so don’t hold back.  You can knock off even more if you fully investigate grants, scholarships and work study programs.  So don’t assume anything when it comes to negotiating lower tuition costs at private schools.

  • Print

13 comments Add your comment

Ernest

November 1st, 2009
8:57 pm

Along the same lines, there was an interesting article in the 11/1 NY Times on the impact the economy is having on flagship state universities. It can be found at:

EDUCATION / EDUCATION LIFE | November 01, 2009
The New Public Domain: At Public Universities: Less for More
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01public-t.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
By PAUL FAIN

The key thing I found out is to start early. The sooner one finds out what FAFSA says the family contribution can be, the sooner one can begin looking at other scholarship opportunities. There are several good websites that help make the process easier.

lynn

November 2nd, 2009
7:31 am

Also, consider schools where your child’s stats put him/her in the top decile (or maybe even quartile) of admitted students. These schools will often offer more money to lure such students.

Do enough research that you understand that some schools (NYU for example) are notoriously stingy with merit (and even need based some say) aide.

Make sure you understand that the Ivys give little to no merit aide. For example, there are no full rides based on merit at Harvard any longer. Rather, they have a sliding scale based on family income and other factors (assets) that decides what tuition will be.

Explore collegeconfidential.com, especially the parents forum and financial aide forum. They are extremely helpful.

catlady

November 2nd, 2009
8:14 am

I echo the above. Also, understand there are two kinds of aid: merit (grades, etc) and need (family finances). Some aid is gift–you don’t have to pay it back. The merit awards you start building toward from the beginning–teaching your child personal responsibility, for example, so that they are motivated to succeed and best their peers. I have wondered if it would be good to stash your college savings with the grandparents, so that it is there but does not appear on your balance sheet. (I believe the $10,000 in gift aid per year can go UP as well as DOWN, generationally).

While private colleges can give more gift aid, they also can pull the old bait and switch. First year, lots of gift aid, next years–not so much. They figure once they get you in the door, your kid will be loathe to move.

catlady

November 2nd, 2009
8:15 am

Ms. Downey, can we talk about the article in the paper on saving money on subs for K-12?

Maureen Downey

November 2nd, 2009
9:07 am

Catlady, Yes. I will post shortly on that issue.
Maureen.

KNFXBS

November 2nd, 2009
9:09 am

FAFSA says my family contribution is $12 but grants did not cover all expenses and I still had to take out loans. Does this sound correct or should I/my child have received enough grants to cover?

Brett

November 2nd, 2009
9:46 am

This article is joke, when were they going to school last, no college is going to negotiate for your child, when most likely there other kids lining up to go to the school too. Parents your kids are NOT, special, they don’t care if your kids lick there school, they are worried about the MONEY. The tuition is set my the board of regions, and that only pays for a small portion of the school, that why the fees are inactive. FEE’s are the bulk of the issues. And FAFSA only pays for a small bit, and it by the govt, and we all know what a joke that it.

Good Blog

November 2nd, 2009
9:47 am

To KNFXBS @ 9:09:

The EFC on FAFSA is only used to determine if a student is eligible for need based federal student aid (Pell Grant, Subsidized vs. Unsubsidized loans, SEOG, etc.) and if so the amount. It is not a barometer for determining what you are expected to actually pay. What an institution provides in financial aid (i.e., grants, loans, scholarships, etc.) is determined primarily by the school’s resources, a student’s need, and if the school has a death-grip on divvying funds when a student’s name comes up for review.

Overall, the points above are spot on. Students had better know what they’re getting into or they’ll be in for a world of hurt when they graduate (undergrad) with $85,000+ in loans.

KNFXBS

November 2nd, 2009
9:56 am

Good Blog, thanks for the information.

Paul Hemphill

November 2nd, 2009
10:40 am

# 4 = can’t be serious! You need to establish a relationship BEFORE you’re accepted so you can be accepted by someone who already knows you and can fight for you at decision time. Progress in life depends on the relationships you establish. Go to http://www.videocollegecoach.com/coaching.html

Jan

November 2nd, 2009
2:07 pm

We knew we would get little in the way of need-based aid, so we considered the demographics of the schools and the size of the schools’ endowment. My daughter goes to a private religion affliated liberal arts college in the Midwest that usually draws students from the home state and three surrounding states and usually within 4 hour drive of the college. They were so excited to get a kid from GA that they added additional renewable annual scholarship money in addition to the renewable annual merit scholarship of $14K. We also made the colleges aware that we were considering competing colleges of the same religious affliation in the same area and what the other schools were offering. The colleges literally fell over themselves to give her more money. Of course, having an academically motivated and high achieving kid didn’t hurt either.

momof3

November 10th, 2009
10:41 pm

unfortunately, I had the opposite effect with an out of state school– our student was accepted and we received parent info but no student info. We filed our FASFA in Jan and it was early april and they still hadn’t procesed the info for aid for their school. It was a full day of flying to get there and we wanted to be able to compare apple to apples with other schools our student was accepted to. Almost impossible when you can’t get any info-contact with all the possible contacts given via phone or e-mail. One actually said that its how its done in the south. Our issue was May 1 deadline and no financial info to help.

Mich

February 4th, 2010
10:00 am

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Opportunity-Success/Opportunity-Awareness/175617329529

this is actually a great financial aid and opportunity guide made simple for students.