Financial Need Model for Students - Graduate Programs

Kenda Fanzo

Hi! Can anyone share their model or algorithm for determining financial need for the purpose of awarding scholarships for those that are in programs at the graduate level and above?

Russel Heskin

@Kenda Fanzo We are a graduate health sciences university, and we're not satisfied with our current solution; so I'm interested in how others are dealing with this. Currently, though, we import a field into BAM we call “Gross Need.” It is a calculation of the program's Total Cost of Attendance less the student's Estimated Family Contribution from FAFSA. For those awards that require financial need, we add a Qualification that Gross Need must be greater than or equal to the award amount; and reviewers can see the Gross Need to determine which applicants have more or less need. We have discussed changing Gross Need from an actual dollar amount to a rating scale (e.g. 5 = high need, 1 = low need), but it's complicated as we have nearly two dozen different programs that each have their own cost of attendance; so a high Gross Need in one program might be a low Gross Need in another. The biggest issue we're running into, though, is that international and DACA students don't complete a FAFSA, and for them BAM shows $0 for Gross Need. This makes them ineligible for financial need-based awards.

Jo Holland

@Kenda Fanzo
Could you share the software you are using? Thank you.