Columbia FA about Home Equity?

I recently ran NPC for Columbia and I was surprised at the high estimate net price.
As far as I know, Columbia considers no more than 2.5 times of income for home equity.
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/
(click and see ‘Home Equity Spreadsheet’ in above website)

But it seems they consider 100% of home equity for now.
Do you know they changed the policy recently?

Can anyone (who has home equity or asset) run Columbia NPC, and let me know comparing with other ivies?

I also find when running Columbia’s net price calculator using the College board version that it seems to count primary home equity just like any asset at full value:
https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/columbia/

However when running the “quick calculator” that is featured on Columbia’s own web page I get a result as if home equity is counted less, even if using the same inputs:
https://cc-seas.financialaid.columbia.edu/estimate-cost

I suppose the collegeboard calculator is advertised as being more accurate, however I wonder if this is the case since its not directly hosted by Columbia?

Thank you. I called FA office, they said “quick calculator” is not accurate and NPC is pretty accurate.
When I ran NPC last year and before ED, it was almost same as “quick calculator”, but after November, it’s changed.
Huge change!!! I don’t understand.
It’s almost same as Brown.

Just did run an NPC using the exact same MADE UP figure of:

Income: $130,000
Cash savings: $10,000
Investment: $430,000
Home equity value: $330,000 with 0 mortgage debt remaining
2 siblings in college

Columbia EFC: $37,969
Dartmouth EFC: $36,765
Princeton EFC: $20,100

Out of these three, both Columbia and Dartmouth asked for home equity $ figures whereas Princeton didn’t. I recently did run NPC for Harvard and Yale, and I found HYP to be closely competitive with none requiring to report home equity.

Thank you. but your made-up income is too high. Income is more important factor.

So with your figures, it’s difficult to see the home equity influence.
In Colubmia website, under $100000 income, they consider 2.5 times.
So if you don’t mind, could you do it one more time with the income of $50,000? Thank you so much.

Sure, here are the results from the same schools using:

Income: $50,000
Cash savings: $0
Investment: $0
Home equity value: $330,000 with 0 mortgage debt remaining
No other siblings in college

Columbia EFC: $20,384
Dartmouth EFC: $6,873
Princeton EFC: $2,600

This time, a huge difference between C and D.

Thought maybe I made a mistake, so I ran Columbia NPC again, but the result is the same. I’m astounded.

Thank you so much. Then, it’s not only me seeing that huge difference.
It used to have same net price as Upenn or Cornell or Dartmouth. D was always little better though.

My kid applied Columbia ED. And NPC has changed after November. it was HUGE. : our home equity and asset is way bigger than your made-up number.
I sent emails three times but they didn’t reply. I called twice and they kept saying that the NPC is accurate and there is no problem. FA officers said I must have entered wrong numbers or we should change to RD.
Maybe we are going to change to RD. It was very frustrating and very very sad situation.

I tried some scenarios and it seems its evaluating home equity just like cash assets at roughly 5.5%

Income $50,000.00 $50,000.00 $50,000.00
Cash $0.00 $1,000,000.00 $0.00
Home Equity $1,000,000.00 $0.00 $100,000.00
NP $54,672.00 $54,672.00 $5,490.00

(Cash+Equity)*.055: $55,000.00 $55,000.00 $5,500.00

@green345 : What would be the advantage of changing to RD? If the student is accepted at RD, its unlikely that RD will offer any better aid. If the student is accepted for ED and attendance with the aid is not affordable, then the student is free to walk away and apply elsewhere.

If this student applies RD. He will
Have the ability to compare net costs amongst multiple acceptances.

Some of these schools will reconsider their need based offer based on what a peer school offers.

That can’t happen with ED

@nypapa, thanks again for your simulation. yes,almost 5.5%.:((
And I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk away ED. If we do, it will also lose RD opportunity.
And it will be very difficult for me to say NO for the financial reason as a parent. I will probably accept ED and sell our house or something. But I really don’t know if it’s worth it to stay ED with that huge difference from other schools.

But with RD, we can compare FA package as thuper1 said.

And Columbia FA said that I’m the only one who said that NPC has changed and no other families has problem.
That’s why I made this thread.

If anyone already applied ED, you’d better rerun NPC, ASAP.

That’s true @thumper1 . By the way, $50,000 income and $125k home equity gives per calculator a net price of $7000. It looks like the calculator is clearly not capping home equity at 2.5 income since we seen in the other scenarios that larger equity values further increase the NP.

@green345

Please…please…do not sell your house to pay for a kid to go to college. If this school is unaffordable than it is unaffordable.

Being able to compare net costs could be to your advantage.

@thumper1, You’re right. So, we have decided to change it to RD. So sad…

It’s not sad. It is what it is.

Maybe because Columbia has a different policy for students whose families make less than 60k /year.

With a 6% acceptance rate, this seems a bit pointless, this premature hand wringing.

@green345 Did you save the inputs and results of the pre-November NPC?