@MrAmerican15 I’d be interested in an update once you’ve resolved this. CC is a wealth of info but treatment of business income and assets in the FA process is one of the murkier areas.
Hi again. Received a quick email response and FA has been good about this. The parent contribution was dropped by about 300 but a, work study, was added. I have yet to call and yes this process is very murky and perhaps FA can provide us with some specific insight. Thank you for all the posts and I will post again when more is known next week.
I’m starting to wonder if there is something wrong with Brown’s financial aid calculator. I went to the following college websites and input into the calculator exactly the same data (income, home equity etc) and here are the results for expected family contribution:
$21,891 Haverford
$24,412 Georgetown
$19,224 Swarthmore
$24,924 Cornell
$20,600 Amherst
$45,809 Brown
Note how they are all close with the exception of Brown.
A week later, I did another comparison for an upcoming college seminar at D’s school. I ran the numbers for a low income family of 4, non homeowners. Not only was the expected contribution for Brown twice as much as the others, the Pell Grant was calculated at half the amount every other college used. I understand each school has their own formula but this strikes me as odd.
Or Brown is more expensive or more realistic. I recall using the net price calculators with S3 and seeing a cluster of seemingly very low results. When the actual award letters came through from the acceptances they were all closer to the “high” one. We have rental properties. I would probably call one of the low ones and ask questions AND call Brown and see what happens.
Did you say someplace that Brown considers 100% of primary home equity? If that is the case, this very well could be why their net costs are higher.
And if the consider 100% of primary home equity…one would guess that additional real estate equity is similarly considered.
We know the efc dropped to 20k, but not what $ the aid pkg offered. So we have no idea if the final family contribution is in range.
I’m frankly surprised OP hadn’t called by June 3, almost 2 weeks later. Maybe there’s an update by now.
Yes, that’s the information provided by a third party.
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/
I obviously can’t guarantee its accuracy, but I have no reason to doubt the info. provided.