PA is absolutely correct. Merit aid is another wonderful thing that not enough parents/students research while looking at schools. For middle-class earners who have been diligent about saving, the EFC is going to be quite high, in many cases greater than a year of salary. When the EFC is greater than the COA, the student won't get any need-based aid.
We have friends whose son got a full-tuition merit scholarship to RPI for 4 years. He would not have gotten one from MIT etc, simply because MIT doesn't provide them.
When a student is looking for colleges with an eye for merit aid, initially look at the mid 50% range for standardized tests. Look more closely at the schools where your SAT/ACT scores are higher than those of the schools' high end range. This is just a starting point.
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Originally Posted by PhoenixAzul
My college (Otterbein) is about 27,000 a year. But, I end up paying less to go there and live in than I would going to a PA state school and living in, because I qualified for merit aid. State schools didn't offer me any merit aid, and I was out of the "need" aid range. But OC offered me several sizeable scholarships that brought my costs down to about 7 a year. And the education was/is exactly what I was looking for...small classes, professors not TA's, small campus, campus "feel", and a real campus community. I didn't feel any of those at the state schools I got accepted to, nor some of the more "elite" private schools I was accepted by. I can honestly say that I do not regret my decision in the least, and the above is pretty spot on.
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