<p>I am a high school senior, and I have already been accepted to some of my top choice schools. So far it has been Brown and Cornell, and UCLA, but letters are still coming. All the private schools I applied to garuntee to meet full need.</p>
<p>Now, my situation is this. Back when the housing market was failing, my father sold the house we used to live in, and we decided to rent a different house until the market bottomed out. So for the moment, we have a huge sum of assets sitting in our bank account that colleges are probably ready to pounce on. But now that I'm going away to college, my dad really wants to buy a new place, which would be a purchase that would GREATLY reduce our assets, although, after my first year.</p>
<p>Currently, my EFC is about 25000, but thats only because I still have one sibling in college for one more year, so my cost is....tolerable for my freshman year. I know that once my brother graduates tough, my EFC would pretty much double. My question is, can the sudden change in pure money assets that will come from my dad buying this house (which would be his primary house) lessen my financial aid in the future? Or would colleges simply say "No, we're not going to help you out, what kind of dumb person buys a house when they need to be paying for college."</p>
<p>My dad only makes about 80,000 and is self-employed in a highly unreliable job. Selling the house earlier basically just saved him from ruin, and now its threatening to ruin our aid. Does anybody know what I should expect for next years aid packages? If it shoots up to full tuition, private school is pretty much out. Which sucks, because....BROWN. Ugh, I'm just frusterated. Any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>You need to call those schools and ask. See, while the EFC calculated by FAFSA does not include equity in the primary residence, colleges that use the PROFILE (like Brown and Cornell) do look at equity in the primary residence. They decide how they will use that information. So you need to ask them. From what I can tell of UCLA, it seems to use only the FAFSA which means that moving your dad’s $ to a home purchase will reduce your EFC there-- which is important if it meets need. Since UCLA is a public college, it probably doesn’t meet full need but I don’t know for sure.</p>
<p>Thank you for the quick response. Yeah, I supposed I should call a school or two and see what my situation is. I know that no matter what I know, I’d be paying pretty much full price at UCLA, which my family is actually somewhat able to do. Its the 50,000 /yr from the private schools that I’m worrying about. </p>
<p>This might sound like paranoia, but do you think that telling financial officers about my situation might make them… distrust me or anything? I don’t to call my dream school and have them think I’m trying to scam them, lol.</p>
<p>No, I think it will sound very honest-- and very mature that you’re gathering all your information. In case your father didn’t write it on the financial aid applications, he could still contact the colleges and explain that the $ is the equity in a primary residence that was sold and you expect to buy one soon. He could ask them to take that into consideration with this year’s package. He could also do that with your sibling. You guys might get a big more $-- maybe not, but it’s worth a try.</p>
<p>Your FAFSA EFC may be irrelevant to these privates since they use institutional formulas.</p>
<p>You probably should contact your schools to let them know that the cash in the bank is from the sale of a primary residence and another residence is being purchased.</p>
<p>no, they won’t think: “who buys a home when you have to pay for college.” They know that people typically have to buy another home after selling a home to avoid capital gains taxes. (I think you have to buy within 2 years or something…don’t know if the rules have changed)</p>
<p>I know my FAFSA EFC doesn’t really matter, but I didn’t know what to call the estimated family contribution when calculated by the CSS Profile. Do you guys think I should just wait until the aid packages come out, or should take the initiative and call ASAP?</p>
<p>One problem you (and many others) face is that there are applicants with your (or better) qualifications with zero family assets, and schools don’t have enough endowment to support all of you. They will often choose to support those with zero assets first, and then not have enough to help support those with assets. :(</p>
How to keep your housing/asset situation from hurting your FA package, including can anything be done to improve your initial award.
Getting information to help you make an enrollment decision.</p>
<p>You situation this year may not be changeable, but you will be making a 4-year commitment to a school so it will be important to understand how things will change in years 2-4. Will your father be buying a house this year? Either way, what will the impact be on your future FA awards? What will the impact of your sibling graduating be? You can and should ask these questions. It may also make a difference in when your father buys house. Buying a house this year as opposed to next year may increase FA awards by thousands of dollars depending upon how the school treats home equity.</p>
<p>The enrollment decision angle is certainly less threatening to the fin aid offices and gives you some additional leverage. It’s one thing to ask, “can you give me more money?”; it’s another to say, “I just need to understand how this will work in the future so I can make an informed enrollment decision.” If the fin aid office is not forthcoming with answers, go back to the admissions people and tell them the difficulty that you are have in trying to come to a decision. These schools admitted you. They want you to enroll.</p>
<p>At this point, late March, it’s probably better to wait for the FA packages before calling. You can talk real numbers.</p>
<p>BTW, congratulations on your acceptances to such fine schools. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for all the help! I’ll just wait for their aid packages to come, and then call the schools to ask how the aid packages will be determined for future years. Thanks!</p>
<p>I have to say I have heard of two very different college approaches. One said that they assessed the family situation the first year and built the four year picture based on year #1. Another version is that each year is different, so each year the student fills out the FAFSA and it is evaluated each year. </p>
<p>The important thing is that the assets are in your Dad’s name. It is assets in YOUR name that get whacked away quickly as “hey, that’s money for college.” You may find that your situation is not that unusual or difficult for fin aid officers to assess or advise. Parents sell and move all the time.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have a good plan, dirtychucks. Some private schools do cap home equity at a certain percentage of income. If Stanford is on your list, it is one of those that do so.</p>
<p>Need based aid is calculated ANNUALLY. Here is what our experience was with two Profile schools.</p>
<p>School 1- Student was required to file the FAFSA and Profile as an entering Freshman. After that the FAFSA was required annually UNLESS financial situations changed dramatically, and then the Profile HAD TO be resubmitted. Clearly the school saw the finances on the FAFSA enough to know if there was a “change”. Need based aid was calculated ANNUALLY. (NOTE…our kiddo didn’t get need based aid but this was the school’s procedure and we followed it…hope springs Eternal…and he did take the Stafford loan which required the annual FAFSA).</p>
<p>School 2- Both the FAFSA and the Profile were filed ANNUALLY (what fun!!). Need based aid was calculated ANNUALLY. </p>
<p>Merit aid at both schools was awarded as a freshman and was continued contingent on maintaining a certain GPA. At School 1, no finaid forms were required for renewal of MERIT aid. At School 2 the FAFSA/Profile were required for renewal of SOME merit aid because it also had a need compontent.</p>
<p>In any event…need based aid…calculated annually.</p>
<p>Yes Stanford is on my list! And until recently, it was actually my dream school, but that was when I was still too preoccupied with name recognition to think about the actual schools. Now that I’m in to brown tho (which still has wonderful name recognition), I’m pretty sure I still chose that over stanford. I do know though that Stanford has better aid, because they consider more of your assets “protected” from consideration in your ability. I’m hoping that IF I got in (which I used to think I was a pipe dream, but my track record is pretty good right now, so who knows) I might be able to use that financial aid assessment to possible have Brown match it.</p>
<p>Wow, I gotta tell you, this forum is giving me a lot of hope. I really thought before that it was hopeless. Thanks so much!</p>