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FINANCIAL AID
By Financial Aid, we mean fee reductions based on family income. We offer aid to the extent that our resources and grants allow. It is our hope in 2020 to do what we have been able to do for the last several years: for each admitted student who qualifies for aid, offer enough aid so that the student can afford to attend. Families requesting aid will be asked to submit 2019 federal income tax forms for all adults who support the applicant.
You may apply for aid if your adjusted taxable income (as defined below) is less than $127,500. This is very likely if your total family income is less than $150,000. If you are offered aid, then the aided tuition formula is 4% of 2019 adjusted taxable income, with a max of $5100. Your final fee can be reduced further if you qualify for the sibling benefit or the early pay reduction.
Total income is income before any deductions, as defined by the US Internal Revenue Service. It corresponds to line 7b of the 2019 US tax form 1040.
Taxable income, as defined by the IRS, is total income less various adjustments. For most people the main adjustment is their deductions, either standard or itemized.
Taxable income is line 11b of the 2019 US tax form 1040.
Adjusted taxable income is our own term and is defined as
T - S - 4000 * D,
where T is your total income, S is your standard deduction (even if you itemize) and D is your number of dependents not counting the taxpayer and spouse.
Example. Your child has been admitted to MathPath for the first time. You request financial aid, and we still have sufficient funds to give aid according to the formula on this page. Your family has 2019 total income of $126,500, all in the US, and your family consists of two parents (filing jointly), two children, and no other dependents. You took the 2019 standard deduction of $24,400 for a couple filing jointly and so had taxable income of $102,100. By our formula, your adjusted taxable income is
$126,500 - $24,400 - $4000*2 = $94,100,
because you have two dependents other than you and your spouse.
Next compute your aided tuition:
.04 x 94,100 = $3764.
Since this amount is less than $5100, it is your aided tuition, meaning that your full fee is $3764. If you pay three months early (by February 29; the final payment date is May 31), then you get a further 1.5% reduction, as explained on the page about early payment. Thus, you would pay a total of:
$3764 - 0.015*($3764) = $3764.00 - $56.46 = $3707.54
Reminder: Financial aid is not automatic; it depends on what funds MathPath has available and timely submission of financial data.
Exceptions
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Students who have already attended MathPath twice are not eligible for any financial aid.
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Students who have attended MathPath once are eligible for aid, but will be funded less
generously than described above, typically paying $300 more or 25% more, whichever is greater. If a student is readmitted for a second year and requests financial aid, an aid decision may be deferred until we know more about the amount of aid requested by new admits.
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If your 2019 income is either substantially higher or lower than your income in 2018 or your expected 2020 income, we may consider those other years in deciding your financial aid.
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If the nature of your income is unusual (e.g., little wage income or little apparent income at all) we may ask for much more detail about your situation and we may compute your financial aid in some other way. Given a different computation, we may give some candidates more or less financial aid than what our above formula determines.
Other countries. We need to know the worldwide income of all family members who support the applicant. If income comes from countries with tax systems roughly similar to the US system and with a realistic exchange rate (e.g., Canada), we will ask for 2019 tax forms you submit to those countries, convert your income to US dollars, and then compute your adjusted taxable income as if your were reporting all your income in the US. In other cases, we will ask for as much financial information as you can give us and compute your financial aid in some appropriate way.
Note 1: Financial aid for returning students from overseas (not Americans or Canadians) is severely limited. There may be no aid, or it may be capped at $1000. Furthermore, admittees from other countries will be responsible for all travel, visa, and related expenses.
How to apply for financial aid.
You apply for aid by a simple checkbox on the online program application. For planning, we need to know at that point if you believe you are a candidate for financial aid. We will inform you whether aid is offered when we email you our admissions decision. The exact amount of aid is determined after you submit your tax forms for 2019, which you should do as soon after admission to MathPath as they are available.
If this tax information will not be available until some time after your admission, we will decide with you at the time of admission how to proceed. The default is to pay the $500 minimum deposit to reserve a seat, and to compute your exact fee once your tax forms are available – resulting in a further payment or a refund.
If there are any questions, please email April Verser at april.verser@mathpath.org.
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