<p>I am very lucky. When my father passed away, he left me with sufficient money to handle two college tuitions at private colleges for my two children. In addition, my family income is pretty good, I have a lot of equity in my house, and my retirement accounts are looking good too.</p>
<p>So, when my older son went to college, it never occurred to me to apply for financial aid, and I didn't educate myself very much about the whole thing. I figured we wouldn't get any, so I didn't bother.</p>
<p>My younger son has been accepted to his ED school and again we didn't apply for aid. However, his girlfriend -- whose family is, I think, in a comparable position to ours -- DID apply. And she's received some chunky awards.</p>
<p>Her dad asked a few schools whether these awards were based on merit or on need, and the schools kind of shrugged and didn't give a straight answer. According to the girlfriend, they really had no expectation of getting any aid based on need.This makes me feel like, If You Ask, You Might Get. </p>
<p>I don't know the specifics of the girlfriend's family's finances, of course. I think the income is pretty good, and I know there's lots of equity in the house. I don't know if they have the nest egg we have set aside, thanks to Grandpa.</p>
<p>But am I stupid for not having even applied? And is there anything I can do about it now?</p>
<p>I'm no expert, but from what I've read, most schools don't look much into home equity when calculating financial awards. it has more to do with monies that could actually be spent on college, like income, assets, etc. assets in the student's name especially are considered (at a much higher percentage than those of the parents).</p>
<p>and, you can always try applying now. you might get nothing, but you might get a little something that was left over if the school is generous enough.</p>
<p>Most merit awards that come from the school do not require a separate application. These are called "grants" or "scholarships" but are actually discounts from list price in order to induce your student to attend. So for whatever its worth it does not appear you made a mistake not asking for these, since you did not need to ask anyway.</p>
<p>It is very late to be asking for need based aid. Asking for it, by way of filing the FAFSA and sometimes Profile, is required for that kind of aid. You might play around with one of the many finaid calculators to see what your EFC would have been. From your description it sounds like you are lucky to not qualify for need based aid, but you could verify that if you wanted to.</p>
<p>I'm a little skeptical that the the friend's dad does not know and could not find out if their aid was need or merit based. It might be that was just a little too personal and he did not want to discuss it. Your asking what kind of aid it was might be the kind of question to politely deflect.</p>
<p>This reminds of something that happened back in my college days, during the Teddy Roosevelt administration. I attended a U. in Texas with a mix of urban and rural kids, myself being urban. When meeting rural kids, if I found out their dads owned farms or were ranchers, it was natural to ask how big it was or how many cows they had. Someone was kind enough to tell me that that is like asking how much money they have and earn, so I quit doing that.</p>
<p>I didn't ask the girlfriend's dad; she volunteered. I haven't spoken directly to the dad, 'cause I thought that would be too personal also.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if these are really naive questions, but as I said in my original post, I never thought to apply.</p>
<p>It sounds like, If I take the $150K I have in usable assets (i.e., not in retirement accounts) and pay off my mortgage, I'd have a lower EFC and a lot more aid. Could that possibly be true? Is that something I should seriously consider?</p>
<p>I've seen you on the Dartmouth board and I can assure you it won't work there. Home equity is counted. For most people who write the full check, colleges would expect them to. If you have an upper middle class income, $150K in liquid assets and home equity you probably would get nada.</p>
<p>You know the story about the accountant being interviewed who was asked
"What is 2 plus 2?"</p>
<p>Potential Job applicant thought about it for a while and said "Whatever you want it to be".</p>
<p>Decision......HIRED. You could probably think of all kinds of interesting ways to allocate that money that wouldn't necessarily be as transparent to FAFSA as a Savings account in yours or Juniors name.</p>
<p>With that kind of green, it would be worth it to talk with a financial planner specializing in college funding, if you haven't already. Find someone that is recommended by someone you know.</p>
<p>You can also play around with the FAFSA online calculators, and see what a difference the assets vs. income argument is. As someone pointed out, however, CSS Profile looks at home equity. Neither, as far as I remember, look at debt very much (if at all), other than other college-age kids you are paying for.</p>
<p>I did all the work to find out we had a much higher EFC than is realistic....but, they say that if there is some change in your circumstances over the time your kid is in college, it helps to have prior year's FAFSA results as examples. So, NO, you're NOT stupid for not asking for aid---you probably would not have gotten any need-based aid, and you usually don't have to ask for merit-based aid, except of via outside Scholarships (not sponsored by the individual college/university).</p>
<p>On my son's college website, I did some scenarios -- one with the $150K is cash (reality) and one without (say, invested in landscaping and a pool and a new car and . . . and . . . and . . . )</p>
<p>With the $$$ in cash, my EFC is something like $60,000. Without the $$$ in cash, my EFC is around $38,000. </p>
<p>But I DON'T like the idea of getting rid of my cash reserves. If I lose my job, I'd need that money. And presumably, we'd then get aid.</p>
<p>If you do use your liquid assets to pay off the mortgage, open a home equity line (but don't use it) so that if you lost a job (and then couldn't get the home equity line) you'd have one open and could use those same funds for emergencies. Some schools give merit/grant money in excess of need. It is a way to draw in students they want. And some awards that are considered merits require filing for aid--which I don't quite understand. Most merits don't though I don't think.</p>
<p>Also, some schools are not need-blind in admissions and may have considered that your child did not need aid when deciding to admit early. Your school may not be one of them, but one of the school's my son looked at made it very clear in their literature that they were not need blind in admissions (it was a top LAC in Ohio).</p>