<p>Hi everyone!</p>
<p>So my EFC for Cornell is about 33k, or thereabouts. This is higher than my parents can pay, but they mentioned that they could use money from my student 529 account in order to survive the first year. </p>
<p>I was wondering, if all of the money in the 529 (about 10k) were to be spent down in the first year, how would that affect my financial aid in later years?</p>
<p>Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>(edited)</p>
<p>An IRA is a retirement account. The balance in retirement accounts is not counted on your financial aid applications…well it isn’t for the parents…doubt it is for the kids either. Are you saying you (the student) have an IRA with $10K in it?</p>
<p>Haha, oops; I meant 529. I got those confused…</p>
<p>It probably would not decrease your EFC by 10k. So this really gambling on the chance that your family’s finances will improve significantly next year. And gambling on important things is bad.</p>
<p>If you think about it, it’s likely that only 25% of the 529 money reported was added to your Profile EFC…so your EFC will probably only drop by $2500 or so. Are they $10K short and is there any “play” in the COA, ie. can you spend less than what they estimate? Will your parents be taking loans to finance their remaining EFC this year?</p>