Net income. The more exact number for net income is about $85,000, I just referred to < $100,000 because of the cut-off.
Is that Adjusted Gross Income or Taxable Income or Schedule C net profit?
For family owned businesses, you can do a second pessimal NPC run for each college adding back business deductions (i.e. income appears higher) and generously valuing the business (i.e. assets appear higher) to approximate the possibility of the college doing that when calculating the actual financial aid package.
They are setting you up for an April let-down when all of your acceptances are to schools which are too expensive.
Build a merit-seeking application list. If your stats are high, you can start with http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/ ; if you have National Merit status, look at http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/ .
@Madison85, honestly, I don’t know the difference between those. All I know is what I’ve been told, which is ‘net income.’ If you have the time, could you briefly explain the differences between those?
@ucbalumnus, thank you for the advice on the NPC! I’ll try getting my parents to run it again with the deductions added in.
I do have a lot of safeties at this point. The CSU’s are always an option for me, and my stats are high enough for a lot of automatic full tuition/full rides (though my parents probably wouldn’t let me go to states like Iowa or Alabama for school when CSUs and UCs are possible.) I’m also very likely to qualify for NMSF and probably NMF (my scores meet the criteria) so those are an option too.
I have CSUs and UCs as my safeties, and for the rest, I’m applying to reaches (top LACs and one or two Ivies) that tend to be generous with financial aid. I’ll probably have a good idea of which reaches are, well, less reaches than others, based on fly-in decisions in the next few months.
Net income isn’t used. Tell them to use modified AGI.
Unless you are Cal grant eligible for income and assets you are full pay at CSU so about 23k a year. Unless you are Cal grant eligible UC will be near full pay at 33k, possibly you could get UC tuition covered from blue and gold if your income qualifies. Or 20 to 40 percent of UC tuition covered through MCS so about 3 to 5k off. If you get Regents at a UC then 5 to 10k extra grant. So likely 33k, maybe 22k but more likely 27k.
Are you saying that is affordable, then you are in great shape. Or if you can commute to one costs would be much lower.
http://www.csac.ca.gov/facts/2015-16_income_and_asset_ceilings_for_new_applicants.pdf
I seem to be eligible for a Cal Grant. I have CSUs that are within a half an hour from me, as well as UC’s that are within a hour from me. Though it isn’t a certainty, Regents is very possible. With all these factored in, it seems that CSUs and UCs are affordable for me.
When you say use modified AGI, you mean to compare to the 100,000 cut-off, right? I’m not sure on the exact formatting of the NPC, but my parents said that they just filled it in line by line, according to their tax forms.
OK you have 6 in family but you don’t know for sure if AGI is less than 100,800. Be certain. show your parents the link I gave above, and they can use the numbers from the FAFSA EFC estimate to see. I think that is sort of critical. You don’t know about Regents it can’t be counted on. I’m just trying to make sure you know for sure you have solid options in CA. If you get Cal Grant, yes you are in great shape if you can pay the rest. Be sure to heed the deadline for filing FAFSA March 2 because that is critical and you will not get it.
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Net income. The more exact number for net income is about $85,000,
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You’re not supposed to be using “net income”.
And I don’t think you’re going to be eligible for a Cal Grant. That isn’t based on “net income.”
Isn’t the cut off for the Calgrant less than $85,000 a year?
To the OP, what is your parent income without any deductions…in other words…what is their GROSS income…which is all their earnings without deductions?
I asked about business deductions, and apparently, the amount of deductions is relatively small due to the size of the business. My parents told me that, adding in everything concerned with the business, our income doesn’t change more than a few thousand. I’ll be generous and say it is now $90k, with deductions added in.
My dad also reran the NPC for Dartmouth this time (since I was invited to attend its fly-in, making it one of my top choices) with the business deductions included, and it came out as around 15k a year - which is about what I got from Williams without the business deductions. Both are affordable (my parents can pay around 20k a year, give or take some room for type of school.)
@thumper1, my family size is 6 (2 adults and 4 kids) and so, the cut off is about 15k higher than $85,000.
@BrownParent, I understand completely what you mean about having options in CA. I mean, since all my OOS options are far reaches, I would be pretty messed up if my other options fell through as well. Luckily, even if everything goes wrong elsewhere, I still have Cal Poly 15 min from me with 7k a year tuition 
Thank you!
How old are the siblings?
12, 12, and 2.
So no overlap in college.
Not for me, at least.