Please, Please! I Need Help!
Oct 18 '01 (Updated Jan 28 '06)
The Bottom Line You must be persistent and communicate well if you want to maximize your financial aid award.
College financial aid is a critical component of many students' efforts to attend institutions of higher learning. For myself, financial aid wasn't just a luxury- it was an absolute necessity if I had any hope of going to school full- time. In this Epinion, I want to share with everyone my experiences with financial aid negotiations. I have lots of experience in this area, having spent many long hours, face to face, with the college’s financial aid personnel.
Dependent vs. Independent:
First of all, let's talk about personal finances and your ability to pay a share of your college expenses. When you apply for federal aid, you have to submit a form (The Free Application for Federal Student Aid), which contains personal information about yourself and your family. On this form, you will be asked to indicate how much personal savings that you have; the incomes of both parents; sibling information; whether or not your brothers and sisters are also in college; etc. From this data, the powers that be will determine how much financial aid you are eligible to receive, on the Federal level.
When I filled out these forms, I remember that there were a few questions that were asked to determine whether or not the student was considered financially dependent or independent. There were questions such as: “Did you live in the home of your parents for more than 6 weeks in the past year?”, and “Did you receive more than $1,000 in financial support from your parents in the past year”. The answers to these questions were critical, because they determined the financial status of the student. If you could claim financial independence, you would be eligible for more student aid because your award would be based solely on your own personal savings and income, rather than the combined total of yourself and your parents.
For my first year, I was unable to claim independence because I had lived with my parents for most of that year. But starting with my second year, and all the way to the end, I was able to declare myself financially independent. I noticed, in subsequent years, that the requirements for declaring yourself independent kept getting more and more stringent. This was meant, of course, to limit the number of students who could claim independence so that the financial aid awards could be controlled. For example, in my third year, the question about “living with your parents for more than 6 weeks in the past year” was changed to “Did you live with your parents at all in the past year”. It seemed a little drastic to me, to change the wording in this manner, but I knew that they needed to gain control over the money.
Meeting With Your Financial Aid Counselors:
If money is scarce, then there is a good chance that you will be making a visit or two to your college’s financial aid office. I spent a good amount of my time there each semester. In fact, the people working in the financial aid office got to know me on a first name basis! “Hi Bryan”, they would quickly say, as I entered the door. “What can we do for you today?”. “It's the usual”, I would answer. “I don’t have quite enough money to cover my bill this semester. I need some more financial aid”.
I met with these counselors constantly. I had no money of my own, and no hope of ever getting any money from parents or any other family member. I had to get enough financial aid, each and every semester, to cover 100 percent of my bill. I gathered up my tax returns and other personal financial information, and then proceeded to the financial aid office. I was armed and ready for combat!
Each meeting would start the same way. The financial aid counselors have to be frugal. They cannot just hand out free money to any student who asks for it. The student has to demonstrate need. In order to weed out the students who were just there for some possible free money, the counselors would look over your information, and then hand back the financial aid form to the student and advise the student of his/her options. The student was given a “standard set” of possibilities. They would tell you to “call your parents, and ask for help”, or “think about some other resources…surely you have some”. With this action, the counselors sent you on your way, hoping that most students would work out the problems themselves. If the student still could not find any help, then they had no choice but to return to the office for another visit.
As you might have guessed, my first visit was always followed up with second, third, and even fourth visit, if necessary. I had to keep going back, over and over again, until I was able to get my entire bill paid for. I would try to get grants first, then if that failed, I would ask for another loan, or work- study.
How to Negotiate:
Knowing how to talk to your financial aid counselor is important if you want to maximize your financial aid. The counselors have a limited amount of money to hand out, so they must be careful to award money only to the students who really need it. For myself, it was obvious that I needed help. I had no funds at all, and I worked year round to survive, while maintaining a full class schedule. It was very important that I convey the severity of my situation to the counselors, so that they could clearly see just how desperate my situation really was.
You can't do much to change the amount of federal aid that you have been rewarded, but you can negotiate to get more university grants and more loans. University grants are taken from funds that the school has at its disposal, for financial aid purposes. It's your job to convince the counselor that you absolutely must get some more money, or else your college career might be over. Here’s how a typical conversation went for me:
Counselor:So, Bryan, you still have almost $2,000 outstanding to be paid on your bill this semester. Have you talked to your parents?
Bryan:Yes, I did
Counselor: How much are they going to pay?
Bryan:Absolutely nothing!
Counselor: I see….well, how much do you have in savings?
Bryan:This is what I have (I reach in my pocket)…about $3.00 to my name right now. I have no savings of any kind.
Counselor:What did you do with the money you earned this summer?
Bryan:Well, in the few months I had for work, I made about $3,000. I had to use $800 of that for rent, and I spent about $600 on other expenses for living.
Counselor:What happened to the remaining $1,600?
Bryan:I had to use most all of it to pay back that emergency loan I was given last year, remember? You approved a loan for me, for $1,500, with the agreement that I would pay it all back with my summer job. I did what I promised.
With my constant begging and pleading for funds, I was able to effectively communicate the seriousness of the problem to the counselor. Sometimes, they would still send me away with the hope that I would find some money on my own. No matter how many times they did this, I always came back. I would continue to come back, over and over, until they stamped my bursar bill as paid in full.
On more than one occasion, the counselor would dip into a special fund that was only to be used in dire circumstances. The counselor would advise me “not to tell anyone”, and he would mark a special code on my financial aid form, and then stamp it as paid in full. I don’t know where the money was obtained from, or whether or not the counselor was doing something unethical. I didn’t care. It wasn’t my problem. All I cared about was getting the money that I needed to survive.
Final Thoughts:
I have lots of experience working with college financial aid personnel. I was almost a permanent fixture in the financial aid office. They all knew me well, and they expected to see me every semester, without fail. I never let them down. At the start of each term, I proceeded to the second floor of St. Mary's hall, to plead my case.
I had difficulties with parents, on many occasions. There was one incident where I needed to show the financial aid people a copy of my dad's income tax return, so that they would have proof that I was financially independent. My dad resisted giving me a copy, but he finally gave in. I quickly found out why: he was illegally claiming me as an exemption! When I showed this to the people in the financial aid office, I had to explain to them that my dad just didn’t want to give up the tax break, and that’s why he was doing this. They understood where I was coming from. They said that it's not uncommon for parents to do this, even though it's illegal (unless they are providing financial support, of course).
Other students often wondered how I was able to pull this off every year. “Bryan, how are you able to attend a private university without any money”, they would inquire. “How are you able to get so much financial aid, and if it’s this easy, why doesn’t every person in America attempt the same thing?”. The reason I was able to do this, I would tell them, was because of my independent financial status, the severity of my situation, and my relentlessness, when I talked to the financial aid counselors.
I did have some alternate plans to put into place, in case I couldn’t get the aid that I needed. One possible alternative was to find an employer with tuition reimbursement (as part of its employee benefits), work full time, and only take a couple classes each semester. This would have extended my time in school by a couple of years, but it was better to delay getting a degree than to have no degree at all. Another option was to cut back to three- quarter time (rather than a full- time student). At this level, my bill would be reduced, but I could still get financial aid, and I would still be able to graduate in reasonable time.
Financial problems were my greatest difficulty in school. My dealings with the financial aid office were critical to my survival. I often had to swallow my pride and literally beg for money. It wasn’t pleasant, but I achieved my goal. I had been told many times, by many people, that what I was doing was impossible. There was no way that I could attend a private university with no money. “If it’s that easy”, they reasoned “then everyone would do it”.
I proved them wrong.
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