Appropriate Leverage for Negotiating Forum

[MK7]

Hey guys,

I'm hoping to get some suggestions/opinions. I've been accepted at a state school that I want to go to. As of right now my tuition cost per year will be about $10,000 with my scholarship offer. Currently this is my best offer so I have no other offers to leverage.

Is cost of living something that can be leveraged? Has anyone had success doing this? I was recently accepted at a comparable school with a scholarship that isn't quite as good but the cost of living is definitely less.

Has anyone ever used a school's average grant amounts awarded found on their aba disclosed profile as leverage?

Before I received my acceptance letter I spoke with admissions about something regarding my graduation and expressed that I definitely wanted to go to this particular school. I'm hoping that this wont hurt me if I end up trying to negotiate scholarship money. Maybe I could say that the situation has changed now with new acceptances that I've received.

Anyway, any thoughts/opinions are appreciated.

Thanks

[RubyRod]

Using total COA is TCR in negotiations unless it works against you. Schools usually publish their forecasted COA, but just break down the numbers. Whatever the 10000/yr school is projecting as it's living expenses is ADDED COA that the other school does not require of you. Look at the whole picture and make the numbers work for you. Don't LIE about the numbers or manipulate them, just lay out the facts that argue in your favor. You will be taking out loans for tuition, transport, room, board, books, health insurance, etc, so use any and all of those numbers to make your argument. I just did this with two schools arguing that even though the other offer is 25k less, COA is cheaper at the lower scholly school.