<p>Does anyone know if retirement assets are excludable from CSS & FAFSA ?</p>
<p>Actual retirement assets (in retirement accounts such as IRAs, 401ks) are not reported on FAFSA. Money just “set aside” for retirement but not in official retirement accounts must be reported. Current year contributions to retirement accounts are counted as income by FAFSA.</p>
<p>Retirement assets are reported on CSS.</p>
<p>To add the above comments, I don’t think retirement accounts count against you on the Profile, unless they are unusually large. They are asking for the information to find the people who are playing games with their finances to get extra aid.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. I also have another question regarding my home in Long Island)I’m a resident there) & whether it’s excludable, as I also rent an apartment in NYC for business purposes.</p>
<p>You do not need to report the value of the home on LI for FAFSA, since it is your personal residence. Obviously, if you are renting in NYC, that is also not a reportable asset. For CSS, you will need to report the worth (current market value less outstanding mortgage) for the LI home.</p>
<p>CSS Profile wants to know the market value of your primary residence and what is owed on it, which shows how much equity you have. </p>
<p>If you own “other real estate” (such as vacation homes) that also is listed on Profile.
So if you are fortunate enough to own a second home, that market value & what is owed on it would also be listed. Or if you owned rental property as well, all assets. </p>
<p>I would not think a rental apt in NYC would be viewed as an asset by Profile as you don’t own it.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the responses-much appreciated.</p>
<p>what is considered over-funding for retirement? Would it be a percentage of income? Or age-based? What is a reasonable retirement for a couple in their early 50’s living on the East Coast? We have very little in retirement funds but thinking of moving some of our assets over. Thanks for any help.</p>
<p>To find out how various factors of your financial profile are likely to affect your FAFSA results, print out this year’s formula, and work through various scenarios on paper: <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/010512EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf</a></p>
<p>There are calculators for the CSS Profile at the CollegeBoard website, but since each college/university can adjust that formula to include or exclude any given factor, you need to use the Net Price Calculator from the individual college websites for the best estimate.</p>
<p>PROFILE schools do look at the retirement accounts. They each have their own personal limits that they set as far as using them. BC openly says they assess them. Other schools hem and haw and I’ve yet to read a straight answer to that.</p>
<p>Look at the net price calculators for the schools. If retirement assets are used to calculate financial aid, they will be included on the NPC.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for the quick and thoughtful replies. I didn’t know about Net Price Calculator for individual colleges. We are just starting the process, son is a sophomore, would like to go to a LAC probably using PROFILE calculation. We are afraid that college for both our kids will wipe out our savings, with little left for retirement. We appreciate any advice by those who have gone through this. Last week attended seminar by “college funding advisor” who recommended moving all assets to “non-qualified retirement plans” to shelter assets from Profile. But I can’t find any on my own that don’t have contribution limits, and it appears that Profile colleges ask about those assets anyway. If they’re only looking at over-funded retirements, perhaps it is something we should still consider. Maybe I need to start a new thread? I’m sure these are covered in other discussions. I’m new to this forum. Thanks for your patience.</p>
<p>What is a “nonqualified” retirement plan? You should have your retirement savings in retirement accounts like 401k, 403B, IRA types of accounts…NOT in regular savings accounts. I thought these were considered qualified retirement accounts.</p>
<p>Also, if you rent out the LI house while renting in NYC, the LI house will be countedt as rental property. As long as your mretirement is in qualified retirements, none of it will count. Things are mucho trickier with profile schools. If you own your own business, they will disallow many deductions. Home equity, Ben primary can count. If a parent oesnt work, some will add in an expected income.</p>
<p>The only non qualified retirement assets that I have seen are products sold by “financial planners” that have some insurance or annuity feature. Some schools are already wise to the scheme, but there are some that do not include those funds. However, sheltering money from the colleges is only one tiny part of your personal financial planning so please do not make that your only goal. Look into any investment vehicle v-e-r-y carefully. One always should , but when new things that you don’t already have some understanding of how they work, should be particularly scrutinized. I’ve seen families go through all sorts of contortions to hide assets from colleges and most of the time they don’t get that much money or any from the college the kid chooses. There are only a very few colleges that even guarantee to meet financial need. Most schools do not even if the need is there. Then you have to get the money out of whatever fancy vehicle you placed it, and many times there is an early exit fee. So much for saving anything.</p>
<p>I agree with the above post. Your family contribution is LARGELY based on your income. Many folks jump through hoops trying to “shelter their assets” only to find that it really makes no difference in the big scheme of things.</p>
<p>So Garlix…you might want to abandon the idea of “sheltering your retirement assets” as you say you don’t have much there anyway.</p>
<p>I’m worried because we don’t make a lot of money and we are older parents (mid 50s) but we’ve owned our home for 25 yrs so we have a lot of equity in our home (we live in the Boston area). Our home is our biggest asset, but we’d like to use this money to fund our retirement. We are not extravagant people, I drive a 2003 Corolla. Have any other posters faced a similar situation? Any good strategies for schools that use the CSS profile?</p>