The Daily Tar Heel published a recent article where Vice Provost of Enrollment Rachelle Feldman said she attributed the increase of UNC admissions applications to a series of respected qualities of the University, one of which she noted as affordability.
UNC, among a minority of approximately 75 other American colleges, claims to meet 100 percent of the demonstrated financial need of their students. Without prior experience in the maze of a system that is Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA, this promise would be alluring to a prospective student. Unfortunately, financial aid jargon continues to mislead and under-deliver, positioning colleges to promote inaccuracies to students.
Upon opening my revised Spring 2025 financial aid offer this past month, I feverishly scanned the PDF for the red net price subtitle. With the FAFSA formula changes I dreaded finally implemented, I discovered some changes to my original financial aid package.
The new federal methodology no longer factors sibling college enrollment in a student’s financial situation. It also has eliminated the state and local tax allowance translating to a drastic decrease in financial aid in high tax states. The Student Aid Index evaluates your eligibility for grants from the University, but it now disregards critical considerations and produces an inaccurate evaluation taken as the cornerstone for students’ aid.
After expressing the impact my two brothers’ college education has on my parent’s contributions to my own tuition, I was redirected to an application requesting a readjustment. But amid pleading my case, attempting to mediate the flaws of an inadequate federal system on my own small level, I became more aware of a much larger inaccuracy behind the charts and numbers outlining my debts.
The promise of meeting full financial aid is a trend that has invaded top 20 colleges across the country. Yet many students come to find that a lot of these universities are meeting them with work-study opportunities and loans in addition to the sought after grants and scholarships.
The calculation on the financial aid offer is simple: cost of attendance minus Student Aid Index equals eligibility for need-based financial aid. Yet this number, interpreted by the University, remains disproportionate to the grants offered, even considering independently awarded department scholarships.
The opportunity for work-study, which I participate in, is generous. As is the extension of federal subsidized loans offered, but generally the terminology of meeting full financial need gives rise to a technicality question: do federal loans equate to financial aid? Should colleges earn the right to market meeting 100 percent of financial aid if that aid is calculated unfairly?
Students do not pay interest on federally-subsidized direct while a student is in school, making their value more digestible for financial aid departments to offer in their packages. Nonetheless, these loans equate to debt.
