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Originally Posted by nfotiu
The prices you quoted are what we expected to pay. However after filling out the overly complicated FAFSA forms, tuition and books were fully re-imbursed by grants, and she gets a $1470 check for living and school expenses per semester. There's nothing really special about her case as far as I can tell, other than having low income parents. Her mom makes about $45k/year, Dad doesn't claim much income, and my income doesn't count.
Parents I talk to with kids in 4 year colleges often pay no where near the posted rates for tuition either, and that includes parents with professional salaries. It doesn't seem anyone really knows what they are going to pay until they fill out the FAFSA forms.
The system is way overly complicated, and impossible to figure out why or what you have to pay, but at least in Virginia, low income families are not paying much or anything at all for community college.
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Okay, that's a pretty significant shift of the goalposts. For our Canadian readers, FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is a form that all students are expected to complete and is the means test to determine access to federal grants and student loan availability. If you come from a poor family, you have access to a number of funding options, most notably the Pell Grant, that can reduce your tuition expense. You must be considered economically challenged (poor) and meet a number of means tests. Again, this is for poor families. Pell grants are given on a sliding scale, so she may be receiving some grants and loans. Those with the means have their grants applied and then the balance put through to a student loan program, many times with the recipient unaware of terms and conditions. Those loans can end up in a number of products like Stafford loans (for the poor), direct and indirect subsidized loans, or parent plus loans, where the parents are on the hook for the debt. In all cases the cost of tuition and a living expense is included, so a student gets their classes paid for and then gets a check for cash in hand (a bad practice). The whole FAFSA process is complex and part of the problem IMO. I would be certain to make sure that she is not receiving a Pell grant and has a backend loan on top of it, because the process is the same and the outcomes appear to the recipient that they are receiving a free education, when they have a loan to worry about at the end. If she signed a promissory note as part of the FAFSA process, usually near the end of the process, there's a loan attached.
It should be noted that Pell grants pay a maximum of $5,500, with the average grant being $3,600. Again, these are for poor families and require proof of income, or lack there of. The Stafford loans are low interest loans and can be subsidized or unsubsidized, subsidized meaning the interest is paid by the government while you are in school. The benefit being the low interest rate.
I would verify what she's got cooked up and where she is receiving funding and from whom. Based on the numbers you've thrown out, she should have some loan on the backend. Unless the Virginia community colleges system has given her a number of scholarships to cover the rest of her costs, there's something hidden there. This is part of that student loan crisis that has exploded around the country. The FAFSA process makes it way too easy to have loans slipped into the process and students rack up debit they are unaware of until they get close to graduation and have the bills come rolling in. Verify just for your peace of mind, because the numbers don't seem to stack up. Of course, I'm basing this off what students in Arizona get, and $45K in AZ is a pretty decent income. In VA, that's probably more like $25K out here, so there may be more to the Grant. I'd still verify just to be safe.
Bottom line, the system is very much broken, and while you believe you are getting a free education, the reality is you aren't. FAFSA is a terrible process. For many students, including poor students, there is a rude awakening at the end of the pursuit of the degree, which is why there is $1.7 trillion in student debt, and a disproportionate amount of it is to poor and disadvantaged families.