<p>CONSIDERING THE WAY(S) THEY WILL TREAT HOME VALUE
From the book Paying for college without going broke-2011 edition
Question to ask FA office of schools:
CONSIDERING THE WAY(S) THEY WILL TREAT HOME VALUE
Could we start a thread where you paste in school name under heading?
For example under not at all.( University of College Confidential) This would be helpful to know for the 2011 CSS Profile Info.</p>
<p>How do you treat HOME VALUE?</p>
<p>NOT AT ALL
University of College Confidential</p>
<p>ONLY IF THE INCOME EXCEEDS A CERTAIN AMOUNT</p>
<p>WITH THE VALUE CAPPED AT A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF INCOME</p>
<p>WITH THE EQUITY CAPPED AT A PARTICULAR PERCENTAGE OF INCOME
OR AT FULL VALUE</p>
<p>I know that Pomona College caps home equity at 1.5 times income. I emailed them several months ago and asked, and that was their reply. D decided not to apply there, so it no longer concerns me, but it might help someone else.</p>
<p>I pushed FA officers at several selective LACs to give me that information two years ago, and got back a whole lot of “it depends on the totality of the circumstances” kinds of answers. Other than the schools that clearly specified on their websites how it would be treated, I didn’t get very far. Really made me pretty annoyed, because we bought our home before prices skyrocketed here – and there’s no way we could afford it today at even half the value it has, and I didn’t see the point of spending $ on application fees if they were going to look at my house as one gigantic piggy bank.</p>
<p>Probably FA Officers do not want to give out that information, due to “Preferential Packaging”. Applicants are treated differently! An applicant they will truly want, will no doubt get a better FA package than one that is at the bottom of the applicant pool. They want room to wiggle & they certainly don’t want you calculating your EFC (IM) Institutional Methodology, to see whether or not you were gapped! </p>
<p>Speaking of which, I am rather mad about the College Board NOT releasing their info on Asset Allowances, Income Protection, etc. in order to calculate your own EFC (IM) in “Paying for College Without Going Broke 2011 Edition”. </p>
<p>When we buy a house or a car, we are allowed to see how much it is going to cost over a period of time! But now if we are looking at private colleges who use the CSS Profile & the IM formula, we are not allowed to calcuate our own EFC (IM), just to see if our home equity matters or if our state & local income taxes are any where near the correct number that we actually paid. </p>
<p>You could use the College Board’s website EFC calculator & maybe get a ballpark number, if all their information is up to date. Really, what does the College Board have to hide?
Evidently the College Board does not want us to be informed consumers!</p>
<p>PS – I purposely did not say ALL colleges that are fafsa-only bcos I found that some have non-Profile schools have required supplemental forms that include home equity.</p>
<p>My understanding is that most schools using PROFILE do consider home equity as part of their “totality of the circumstances” assessment of what you can afford to pay. They’re not only looking for liquid assets, they’re looking at your net worth. And in fairness, a family with, say $200,000 in relatively liquid assets and another $1 million in home equity is in a much stronger financial condition than a family with $200,000 in relatively liquid assets and no home equity. Besides, until recently home equity loans and HELOCs were very easy to obtain, so the value of that equity was easy to get at and in that sense “liquid.” Many families used home equity as one of the principal assets they would tap to pay the tuition bill. I understand it’s harder to get home equity loans and HELOCs in the current market so that may change the calculation somewhat; but don’t assume your home equity is off-limits when a college using PROFILE is evaluating your financial condition, unless they expressly tell you so.</p>