Policies & Procedures

Meeting Your Financial Need •Payment of College Bills • Student Aid Taxation • Roth IRAs/IRS Education Credits • Federal Consumer Information •

Leaves/Withdrawals

Calculating Your Financial Need

You may find it helpful to understand this “need” simply as a statement of eligibility for financial assistance from resources available to the College. Our assessment of family resources is an attempt to reach an average contribution level for families of similar economic characteristics; it cannot account for all the unique choices made by individual families in ordering their financial priorities. As such, it should not be construed as a value judgment about your family’s own choices.

We assume the first source of support for your college education to be your personal and family resources, which consist of the following elements:

Parental Contribution

Haverford believes that parents have the primary obligation to pay the costs of undergraduate education and that the College’s resources should only be used to assist those students whose family means are clearly lacking. Our analysis of your parents’ financial strength starts with the rationale developed by the College Board for its member colleges. While parental income is a major element in this analysis, it is by itself a poor predictor of the calculated parental contribution from any given family. In addition to income, we consider assets, family size, number of children attending undergraduate college on a full-time basis (i.e. we do not consider graduate studies, parents in college, or less than full-time study), taxes, and medical expenses. The adjustments Haverford and some other colleges make to the College Board system will usually result in a higher Family Contribution. In addition, the accuracy of your estimate may be poor if your experience is marked by such circumstances as sharp fluctuations in income, negative income (as from losses which are always added back to income), and divorced, separated or single, never married parents (the College always and without exception requires the Financial Aid Office to obtain financial information from both parents, including the information contained on the Profile, Noncustodial Profile/Parent’s Statement, custodial and noncustodial parent's taxes and business records, and the FAFSA if the student eligible for federal aid, and to assess the ability of each to pay for college costs before making a decision on College Grant Aid). There are other procedures employed by the College to allocate College Grant Aid which could result in a contribution which is higher than the standard College Board system. Please contact us before you apply for admission if you or anyone in your family have any questions or concerns about these procedures.

If you would like more information about the Federal and College Board needs analysis system you may call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at (800) 4 FED AID or the College Board at (305)829-9793.

If you are dependent upon your parents when you first come to the College, we will consistently require that any subsequent aid eligibility be determined based on our standard assessment of the ability of your parents to contribute to the costs of your education, (including parents who are single, separated, or divorced). The parental contribution is reassessed annually on the basis of a current financial statement and, therefore, the level of your financial aid will probably change from year to year as a function of changing College costs on the one hand and of changing family circumstances on the other. To help you look ahead and understand our procedures we use to make financial aid decisions, you will find it helpful to understand the major factors which are likely to make a difference in the calculated family contribution and thus in your financial aid.

The following tend to decrease the family contribution and thus to increase the level of financial aid:

• Loss or reduction of parental income
  
• Addition of dependent children to the family
  
• New unreimbursed medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of income

The following tend to increase the family contribution and thus — to the degree that such an increase exceeds an increase in College costs — to reduce the level of financial aid:

• Increase in parental or student income or assets
• Reduction in the number of dependents
• Reduction in the number of children enrolled in undergraduate college (graduate students or parents in college are not counted in the analysis of eligibility for College Grant Aid)
• Increase in summer savings, work study, and/or loan expectations

Summer Earnings

Your summer savings expectation is part of the family contribution and represents the portion of your contribution available from your summer employment. If you cannot meet this expectation and you are eligible for Federal aid programs, we can help you and your family arrange loans to replace your summer savings. Any loans you take out to replace summer savings would be in addition to the loans you take out as part of the loan expectation explained below. For 2008-2009 the summer savings expectation for freshmen is $1,700. For your information, the 2008-2009 academic year summer savings expectation for sophomores, juniors, and seniors is $1,950. These expectations are subject to increase each year. 

Personal Assets (Savings, inheritances, trusts, etc.)

Your assets or assets in your name are considered to be available at the rate of 25% each year.

Other Resources

100% of such benefits as Social Security payments, Veterans’ Administration benefits and tuition assistance from parents’ employers will be applied to your college expenses.

For the sake of a consistent approach to large numbers of families, we describe the family contributions as we have above. You and your family may of course choose to redistribute the resources according to your own circumstances. For example summer earnings in excess of the standard could reduce the burden on your parents, as the absence of such earnings could increase the parental share or lead you to borrowing in their place.