EFC is 0, how much do people usually get in need-based grants/scholarships?

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bluemachine

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i was just wondering the above question. if you haev an EFC of 0, what is the normal amount of need-based grants/scholarship (not merit-based nor loans) that you can expect to get from a school? 5k? 10k? 20k?

i received roughly 20k from a top15 school and was hoping to compare it to how it compares to others

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Med school or undergrad? In state/out of state?

It depends on the school in all cases. You received 20k from one school; if you want to know how it compares (in your case) to other schools, it would be best to talk to the fin aid at the other places. Even other people with EFC's of 0 would have different circumstances and so would be potentially eligible for different need-based grants.
 
I had efc=0 and didn't receive any need-based aid anywhere... it all depends on your parents income. If you are 24+ years in age I believe FAFSA doesn't include parental info when calculating your EFC. So for med school, EFC=0 doesn't really mean anything unless you are under 24, which would mean your parents income isn't enough to contribute. But schools would see this anyways via NeedAccess or parents tax returns or looking at parental info you provided on fafsa.
 
It all depends on the school. You shouldn't compare how much you "get" and instead should compare how much you take out in loans when comparing medical schools (because of tuition variability and living expense variability among schools/locations). Most top medical schools are moving towards the use of the "unit loan" model. The unit loan is the amount of loans you MUST take out before grant aid kicks in and covers the rest. Usually the breakdown is : Total COA = EFC + Unit Loan + Grant Aid . Again, you must take out the full amount of the unit loan to be eligible for the Discount/Grant Aid/Scholarship/Free money from the schoool. The way it works is that the students with the lowest EFCs also have the lowest unit loans and receive grant aid to cover the rest. At some schools there are even special scholarships awarded to some students which cover a portion or even all of their unit loan. However, for most students, the unit loan amount you are offered (above the minimum) has some correlation with your EFC amount (when EFC is not zero).

Since you are postulating an EFC of zero then we will be talking about minimums. Which means you should look up each school you are interested in, read their financial aid policies, and discover what that school's minimum unit loan is for whatever entering class year you plan to be. I spent a few minutes googling this myself and found some examples: Harvard's is 33k. Cornell's is 32k. NYMC's is 33k. Mount Sinai's is 31k. Again, these are minimums and you will only qualify for those levels if you have a very low or near zero EFC. Some friends I have who are in private medical schools with middle income parents have unit loans in the 40's. And some of them in reality take out more than that because their parents do not give them the whole EFC.

Another important variable is the breakdown of loan types in these unit loans. Most of these packages include the max in federal loans you qualify for (rates and terms/conditions usually are the same nationwide). But many top schools offer significant amounts of institutional loans which have better rates and terms/conditions than private loans or federal loans and will use these funds as a significant part of your unit loan. Some schools will only offer you high rate loans to cover the difference if you go above the unit loan (ie borrowing for part of an EFC that your parents do not pay you). While other schools have more reasonable options of extra institutional loans for this need. Loan types is an often overlooked variable that is more complex than just an absolute number of the unit loan amount and is something that requires careful consideration. In general, the better the school you plan on going to, the better these loan options are.
 
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