The Energon Pub

I just finished filling it out and I received a number called an Expected Family Contribution number. I can't find any explanation as to what this number means. I got a 72. Does that mean my family is expected to pay 72% of my tuition or what?

Expected Family Contribution means how much your parents will be able to help pay for tuition.

By 72, I'm fairly certain they mean $72 and not 72%, they usually have a percentage sign if it's a percent

Oh ok, I was about to say...my dad doesn't make jack **** and straight up refuses to help me with college. Thanks for the info

My wife concurs that it is in fact dollars and not percent.

FAFSA is my best friend. Thanks to that, I got $5000 on top of my tuition scholarship. It was like $13,000 after all was said and done. It helped that I didn't need to work as much so I could really focus on my studies.

The FAFSA looks at your income and your families income from what I understand and from there it looks into what kind of grants, loans and scholarships you qualify for. Usually, the lower your income, the better the grants. That 72 probably means that since all your family could contribute is $72, then you may have a better chance at getting some good financial aid. It also depends on what your income is though as well.

My income is a big fat zero

I've been out of work since June, living in the middle of nowhere sucks. If I need to get a job, hopefully I can find one near campus.

original sin wrote:My income is a big fat zero

I've been out of work since June, living in the middle of nowhere sucks. If I need to get a job, hopefully I can find one near campus.

Then it's possible that you have some good grant money coming your way. Just don't waste it. You'll piss yourself when you see how much you spend on books and gas. I blew almost $500 on gas last semester with another $400 on books. This semester was $650 for books and I haven't even started to calculate mas gas expenses. It's amazing that I'm even going to Botcon with a much money as what I have saved up for it.

Robofreak's right. Figure on budgeting, MINIMUM, about $100 per class for books and materials. If that's a problem, please, please, PLEASE speak to your financial aid people and your professors.

A few ways to save:

I always put a spare copy of my textbooks on reserve at the library, for example. I also encourage (because our campus bookstore *sucks*) students to find alternate means of getting the books--Amazon or Half.com for example (I'm not advertising for them!). But to do this right, you still need to have those books on Day One of class, so if you contact your professors early, like, say, 2 weeks before the start of the semester and explain your money situation (you don't gots none: hey, most of us when we were in college were in the same boat!) and they'll give you the ISBNs and you can order away and have your books on time.

You might also visit your school's Financial Aid people for scholarships. Bazillions (not a scientific figure) of dollars go unclaimed at my school and state because so many students are so lazy and unmotivated that they think that writing a 500 word essay for a $1000 scholarship is like, way too much work and stuff. Again, a good professor or that college's writing center will be more than happy to help you polish your essays to win that money! Most of these scholarships involve a teeny essay and a little bit of personal info like transcripts; some are specific to career plans, some are not. Since it seems like you're trying to get stuff done NOT at the last minute, seriously, ask about these kinds of scholarships. Some are federal, some are specific to states and some even just to some schools, so you really need to contact the FA office.

HK, who did college pay-for-play.

Yeah it sucks that college books cost so much in America. I was checking out the price for one of my textbooks on Amazon and it was over 4 times as expensive for the textbook for the US imperial units edition than the international S.I units edition .

sniper_samurai wrote:Yeah it sucks that college books cost so much in America. I was checking out the price for one of my textbooks on Amazon and it was over 4 times as expensive for the textbook for the US imperial units edition than the international S.I units edition .

Yeah, glad you appreciate the rape-age.

Here's how THAT works: the textbook publishing companies are required by EU law to have a cap on textbooks. They are told by the EU that they can only charge so much per textbook.

So, sure, they do that. And then what do they do?

To make up their profit margin, they turn around and jack up the US prices, where no such cap-law exists. So US students are paying for it. Nice. But it's cool, because everyone hates the US, right? Rich capitalist bastards with their non-socialized medicine and big vehicles--they can afford it, can't they?

Ummm, no. Not so much.

HK, cheezed, and I get my copies for free.

HK is right that students in the US can't afford it. I'm running almost exclusively on grants and if it wasn't for them I'd be screwed big time.

Another thing that really pisses me off is that textbook companies produce the same book every 2 years with a new cover and call it the next edition. They do this because they know that the largest amount of profit is made within the first year because of used sales. I don't know about other students, but I'd actually be more likely to keep my books if they were about 1/4 of the price.

Another thing that pisses me off is when you get a textbook only to find out you'll never use it. I had a political science class last semester where you didn't need to read at all if you went to class everyday. I feel like I took $130 and set it on fire for that course.

robofreak wrote:Another thing that really pisses me off is that textbook companies produce the same book every 2 years with a new cover and call it the next edition. They do this because they know that the largest amount of profit is made within the first year because of used sales. I don't know about other students, but I'd actually be more likely to keep my books if they were about 1/4 of the price.

Well, don't think they're going to change any time soon. They're already working on more ways to kill buy back (like seriously, does your college actually offer you any sum you consider *reasonable* on buyback?!) and do NOT even get me started on e-textbooks and what epic fail they contain.
HK, anti-tyranny.

see this is why my mom works at my local college. so i get tuition (or books, something like that, wasnt really paying attention) for FREE.

but yeah US students cannot pay for the jacked up book prices

Undead Waffles wrote:see this is why my mom works at my local college. so i get tuition (or books, something like that, wasnt really paying attention) for FREE.

but yeah US students cannot pay for the jacked up book prices

Kind of off topic but your username is the first thing to make me smile since yesterday..

Thanks!

Cyber Bishop wrote:

Undead Waffles wrote:see this is why my mom works at my local college. so i get tuition (or books, something like that, wasnt really paying attention) for FREE.

but yeah US students cannot pay for the jacked up book prices

Kind of off topic but your username is the first thing to make me smile since yesterday..

Thanks!

your welcome, waffle has been the theme of most of my usernames on other sites
and sorry noticed the collledge parts and the over-priced books, had to put my 2cents in

CB wasn't referring to your post, he was referring to his being off topic.

I like chicken and waffles!

Now that I got that out of my system, I just had to drop my BIO course. I know, every college student will statistically drop a couple courses in their college career, but it sucked that it had to be the course that was half my textbook costs this year. I'm going to attack that course again when I start school again because I had to drop it for personal/family reasons.