Can someone explain what this means on Harvard's Price Calculator?

[sybbie719]

@towinanddone

“Father makes $100k, has $50k in assets” “Stepmother makes $600k, has $500k in assets”

i think that they want to look at how much the natural parent is benefitting from the marriage. At this scenario, step parent makes 6x as much as natural parent and has 5x the assets. because there are going to be some shared bills, I think that dad would be assessed a minimum 25/30k based on his income/assets vs an automatic full pay when they look at family income of 700k. While they may not necessarily be looking at a contribution from the step parent, they will look at the overall strength of the family finances for bio parent to pay.

@m2ck

Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to fly to have a “joint account” and claim that a much larger portion is “owned” by the step parent. In many states, if not all states, once you mingle money in an account, it becomes a marital asset… I doubt H is going to be ok with money being in one account and the family claiming that a huge share is really only the step’s money.

In this situation, Harvard states:

@Harvard

For assets where a clear separation isn’t obvious, please halve the value of these assets and include this value

so dad would be assessed have 250k