Note: This article is a followup to my first article, published near the start of this semester, about the changes in Cost of Attendance between this year and last year. It can be found here. “It is NYU Shanghai’s principle and core value to ensure that students’ educations are not limited by financial hardship.” That is a quote from NYUSH’s International Financial Aid page, whose officers from New York visited NYUSH several weeks ago. After receiving questions from students beforehand, the FinAid team held two group sessions in which they discussed the most commonly asked questions. Students also had the opportunity to ask for one-on-one sessions for case-specific discussions. The world of Financial Aid is big, scary, and convoluted, and as such I am unable to reasonably cover all of the topics discussed and talked about during this time. However, I can offer a decent low-down on the basic bits of information that, to the average financially-struggling university student, would be beneficial. If you have any remaining questions, or would like to discuss anything else Financial Aid-related, send an email to [email protected]. *****

A: What constitutes Financial Aid?

Financial Aid is supposed to be a combination of need-based and merit-based grant. The Class of 2017 was given a grant in one full piece which did not differentiate between the two. Since then, however, the rules have changed. The Class of 2018 and all future classes are given the grant in two separate pieces, each part exclusively indicative of one of those two criteria. 1. What is merit? Merit is judged holistically, and includes things like academic strength (how well you did in high school, grades, etc.), leadership qualities, contributions to the school community, test scores (SAT, ACT, etc.), GPA, the strength of the school that you went to, and so forth. 2. What is need? Need is judged according to the data that is sent in on the CSS/PROFILE (for US and International students) and the FAFSA (for US students only). In one of the group sessions, a member of the FA team described the amount of money granted as “cost of attendance minus family contribution”. In this case, family contribution means how much a family is in a position to pay. According to this FA officer, the result of this judgement “doesn’t mean that we will meet your need”, which, is a statement that brings NYUSH’s financial aid principle and core value into question.

B: Appeals

It is assumed that the grants will remain the same throughout a student’s four years of education. This decision is basically absolute as soon as the student has agreed before freshman year, and is considered a fair evaluation of the student’s situation. However, there is an appeal process for those undergoing changes in financial situation. Valid reasons for appealing include, but are not limited to, a death in the family, a loss of employment, or a divorce. The appeal form must be filled in every year, otherwise the amount of aid will resume to its original amount, as it is assumed that “ideally, whatever your situation is, hopefully you’ll be able to recover” Thus, there is no guarantee that an appeal will be approved every year, meaning that an appeal granted one year will not necessarily be granted again. However, getting rejected once does not mean being rejected again, so the office encourages appealing if a student’s situation demands one. I find this personally confusing, as a situation in which an appeal that remains the same gets accepted and rejected on different occasions (in either order) suggests an inconsistency in judgement, as if a death in the family is either a temporary change or more valid as a reason for extra aid in one year over another. Because appeals are a means of alleviating financial pressure as opposed to a guarantee, the FA notes that a student should never count on financial aid to fill a gap in funding. If the student is in such a financial situation in which they have no choice but to rely on the appeal before they know it is accepted (which, in my opinion, brings into question the amount of aid that the student received in the first place and the accuracy of judgement made about their situation), FA encourages finding other ways to obtain the help. Examples include loans (mostly for US students), Plus loans (extra sums of money for the parents of enrolled students) and outside scholarships from other programs. Additional scholarships will most likely not change the amount of financial aid a student receives, but it is a principle that the total amount of aid, scholarships, and loans do not exceed your cost of attendance. Therefore, respective changes may be made.

C: Studying Away

As NYUSH requires a minimum of one semester studying away, questions concerning how aid will apply to these other sites are still under consideration, due to the large variety in cost of living of different study away sites. The original idea was to keep the amount the same, but this can be problematic due to the large amount of NYUSH students that will be studying away, particularly during their junior year. Again, the FA Office is currently undergoing discussions with the administration for a more concrete policy, and will notify the student body as soon as a consensus is reached. Appealing for extra aid due to such a change in cost of attendance is not valid, because presumably this does not affect the family’s own financial standing.

D: Early Decision Aid

The seeming discrepancy between the aid granted to Early Decision and Regular Decision students for the Class of 2017 has been a hot topic for discussion in the past months. The FA Office claims that the financial aid packages for all ED students have been reviewed at the beginning and adjusted accordingly to all other students. The FA thus denies any discrepancy in aid between certain groups of people. In general, the FA Office discourages comparison of financial aid between students, or addressing of financial concerns of groups of people, because of the multifaceted nature of the issue and the complicated decisions that go towards making financial judgements for every person individually. This, of course, rules out many of the questions I have asked the FA Office in my original article about the general comparisons between freshmen and sophomore aid.

E: Miscellaneous

1. Five-year financial grantsIf there happens to be some case in which a student must spend five years at NYUSH before graduating, whether it be for poor academic performance, switching majors too late, or another situation, as of now financial aid is not granted for the extra year.2. What’s up with my bursar account? If you have any problems or questions about billing or your bursar account or anything like that, it is important to note that the Financial Aid Office is (and is required to be) separate from the Bursar’s Office. As such, one is able to redirect you to the other, but they are not always capable of answering questions that happen to land in the other office’s field. ***** Financial Aid is unfortunately a very complicated business, and as the office has liked saying, information is very important and students should be aware of what is going on. Therefore, please do not hesitate to email the Financial Aid Office if you have any questions, comments and concerns. This article was written by Fikret Halilov. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Zhang Zhan