College Financial Package

If you have a college-going child, this is the time you may be thinking hard
to select a good and affordable college for your child and might have
already received financial packages from a number of universities. To
evaluate the financial aid packages, you may take the help of
Lunch-Money.com 's Financial Aid Award Evaluator or CollegeBoard.com's
Aid Comparison Tool.

Packages vary from each other and some are better than others because
they offer more grants and fewer loans. You may get tempted to choose a
school based only on its financial aid package. But if you really like some
other college, donot succumb to your fate so early. You can always try. In
some cases, you can use the better financial package of the school you do
not want as a bargain for a better package at the school of your choice.
But the possibility of winning such a bargain is brighter with a private
school with a large endowment (Ivy League, Caltech, MIT, Stanford) than
with a State University.

You can write a letter to the financial aid office stating your concern over
the package your child received, and include a copy of the other school's
better offer. Explain that your child and you are much interested in this
school but the financial aid package you received won't make it affordable.
If you feel your family's ability to pay for college has changed over the
past year due to reasons like job loss, an illness, a death or divorce, you
can also make an appeal with the financial aid office for a better package offer.