During the spring and summer our office works diligently to determine your financial aid offer for the upcoming school year.
Financial aid at Occidental College is need-based and can change from year to year. If you have questions regarding a change in your award from prior years, we encourage you to call the Office of Financial Aid and ask to speak with a counselor.
Determining Eligibility
When we receive your FAFSA, CSS Profile, Student Supplemental Application, and supporting documents (such as tax forms), we assess your eligibility for all financial aid programs. We use these documents to determine your family contribution. Your family contribution is a measure of what your family is expected to contribute towards college costs.
If your legal parents were never married, are separated or divorced, Occidental also takes into consideration the resources of your noncustodial parent when determining overall financial need. This information is collected from the CSS Profile of your noncustodial parent which is only required one time (generally, your first year or the first year that your parents were in this status).
Your family contribution is determined by, but not limited to, some of the following factors:
- Total parental income (taxed and untaxed)
- Total parental assets (cash, savings, stocks, bonds, 529 accounts, real estate equity, etc.)
- Number of people in your household
- Number of children in your household that are enrolled full-time in an undergraduate degree-seeking program
- Total student income (taxed and untaxed)
- Total student assets (cash, savings, trust funds, UTMA/UGMA investments, etc.)
Changes in these factors could impact your financial aid eligibility. For example, families may see a significant change in financial aid eligibility when older children graduate from college and are no longer considered "in college" for financial aid purposes, but could also see an increase if a younger sibling begins undergraduate studies.
Special Circumstances
When we determine financial aid eligibility we also consider circumstances which affect the family's ability to contribute such as, but not limited to:
- reduction in parental income due to lay-offs or furloughs
- loss of employment
- high medical/dental expenses not covered by insurance
- parent's repayment of their own educational loans
- high private school tuition for the applicant's younger sibling(s)
These special circumstances are captured by the information your family reports on the CSS Profile and any subsequent forms or letters that your family may have submitted. If you requested a special circumstance last year, and were granted additional aid, you will need to document that circumstance each year that it applies.
Financial Need
The full cost of attending Occidental involves more than tuition, fees, room, and board. It also includes books, supplies, transportation, and personal expenses. To determine your eligibility for financial aid programs, we subtract your family contribution from the total cost of attendance (COA):
COA - family contribution = Financial Need
Financial need is your financial aid eligibility, which we use to award you financial aid awards such as scholarships, grants, work programs, and loans.