<p>I tried NPC's for a few colleges. These NPC's do not ask for the asset amount in 401K/IRA. However, CSS includes all these info. For Cornell's NPC, our family contribution for DS3 is about $15K + $7.5K of student loan with two older boys currently in college. How accurate is this NPC? How much weight do colleges such as Cornell place on the assets in the retirement account?</p>
<p>Since the colleges which look at those assets are relatively opaque in how things are calculated there is no way to know how much retirement assets affect aid.</p>