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College students and parents looking to choose a college likely to award them sufficient grants can ask the college's financial aid office these important questions:
Financial Aid Question 1. College policy on student loans:
Several schools, including Amherst College in Mass. and Pomona College in Claremont, Ca., provide enough grants and work-study jobs to meet a student's need. Others, such as Oberlin College in Ohio and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., say they will provide enough grants so that low-income students don't have to borrow, while others will be expected to take out modest loans. Still other colleges offer aid packages that include federal student loans of up to $7,500 a year.
Financial Aid Question 2. The way the college calculates a family's "need":
"Harvard University", for example, promises to provide enough grants to make sure families earning less than $180,000 pay no more than 10% of their income. Other schools on this list promise enough aid so that the family generally only has to come up with an expected family contribution that the school calculates based on the family's income and assets.
Financial Aid Question 3. The college's expectation for a student contribution:
Many of the schools on this list reduce the student's need, and thus the aid package, by at least $1,000 ( and some by much more ), saying that the student is expected to contribute that much each year from summer earnings. A few schools, such as SUNY's "College of Environmental Science and Forestry" in Syracuse, N.Y., provide enough aid so that students aren't required to pitch in summer earnings.
Financial Aid Question 4. How the college counts home equity:
Some colleges, such as "Yale University" and "Occidental College" in Los Angeles, do sometimes consider the equity parents have in their homes as a resource that should be tapped to help pay for college. Others, such as Brown University and Harvard, don't consider home equity at all.
Financial Aid Question 5. How the college considers divorced parents:
Some schools, such as Yale, analyze the incomes of both step-parents and original parents and make their own judgments about which set of parents should be responsible for each student's college costs. Others, such as "Boston College", consider the incomes of only the original parents. Colleges that only use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid consider only the custodial parents' income, even if a stepparent has a prenuptial agreement relieving the stepparent of financial responsibility for the child.
Financial Aid Question 6. Whether the school also offers merit scholarships:
Some schools on this list, such as "Rice University" in Houston and "Washington University" in St. Louis, offer top students scholarships no matter how rich their parents or what their EFC is. Others, such as Columbia University, do not offer merit scholarships.
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