What to do if you didn’t get enough financial aid for your college of choice?

Despite being accepted in your first choice college, filing your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and receiving your student aid report and award letter, if the college didn't offer you enough financial aid, what should you do?

First and foremost, you should review your application for any possible errors. If you’re being presented with an inferior financial aid package, it’s distinctly possible that your college may not have received the correct numbers, to begin with. Obviously, it’s not common, but it’s not unheard of either; at times, the financial aid department of the college can interchange or skip some numbers, unintentionally of course.

Your next step should be to go for a financial aid appeal, asking the college for a higher aid. For this, you’ll need to get in touch with the financial aid department directly and then put your appeal request in writing. Make sure they know why their college is your first choice, and submit documentation for any particular details that you would like to bring to their attention. Don't forget that an appeal has a very little downside, but huge upside potential. Just make sure that you make your appeal the right way.

After your appeal has been received and reviewed and your offer has been modified, you need to carefully weigh in all your options. Consider the net cost (what is the tuition fee minus your financial aid) that you’ll likely incur for the top three colleges on your list so that you have a clear financial picture for each college. Now, sit back and think if you’re willing to pay more for your first choice college. Is it worth to shell out a little extra to enroll at the college of your choice? Absolutely! But if the difference is significant and all the other colleges on your list offer a quality of education on par with your top pick for a lot less money, you need to consider the pros and cons of each college and decide where you’re getting the best value.

To put it in a nutshell, you need to sit down and crunch the numbers before you come to a decision. Emotional decisions may be easy to make, but they might turn out to be costly over the four years of college as well as the following ten to fifteen years of student loans.

My College Corner provides webinars, tools and content to help families make wise college choices. Join our webinar "How to win the financial aid game."