We inherited farm property a few years ago. It’s very difficult to come up with a good idea of what we could get for it without putting it on the market due a number of unusual features, and because there is very little sale activity happening in this area. There are a lot of folks here who are land rich , and money poor here. They inherited property from generations, want to continue the trend, but college financial aid offices are not going to see things that way. I just talked to a couple who needed a value for the property, and what they did was to get three realtors give a quote on what they felt was an ask price likely to be met within the year, and then applied for some loans against the property–to see what it’s worth. Dartmouth might take that as a value for the land. Doesn’t help though if you can’t afford the price and don’t want to sell or take out those loans.
We don’t want to sell and don’t want to take out additional loans (if we even could) as it would put us squarely in debt. One of our biggest mantras for both of our daughters is “Live within your means” “Don’t spend more than you earn”. It’s very unAmerican, but it’s the only way we’ve been able to survive/thrilve. At this point we cannot afford what they have proposed as our EFC (approximately $30,000 per year). We will see where future conversations lead us.
Then maybe the second child has to attend an in-state public as well.