CSS Profile Housing Details help: Amount owed on the primary mortgage for this home

Paying for College
1

I’m filling the CSS profile and this section really confuse me a lot. So a few detail about my house: my parents use their own money to build it back in 2007. They spent about 60000 dollars. Now the value of the house is about 150k dollars. My parents use their own money, they didn’t borrow anyone and don’t have to pay any monthly expense for the house. So what should I fill in the list:

  1. Monthly housing payment (does this include the expense for food, studying, water usage, entertainment,wtc.)
  2. Amount owed on home.
  3. Amount owed on the primary mortgage for this home

I really don’t understand what 2 and 3 means. Can anyone help me. Thanks.

2

You would put zeros for each of those questions.

3

Yes, you would put $0 for these questions.

Then there should be another one about the current value if your house. If it is $150,000, that’s what goes there…if that is what you could sell the house for quickly.

Those other three questions help determine the equity in your primary residence. Since you have no mortgage, and no mortgage payment, your home equity would be the full value of your home today.

4

Is there another question about taxes and insurance on the house? Those are usually paid monthly when there is a loan on the property.

5

How about in the Parent Income category ? Is Bank Saving’s Interest counted as Interest Income ?

6

Yes. The interest income includes the (small) interest in savings and checking accounts.

7

Thank you very much. I might have some more question and I wonder if you can still be here to help me LOL. Would really appreciate it.

8

oh here’s another one: My family currently have 300000 dollars in the bank saving account (deposit) and each year we received untaxed interest of 25000 dollars from the bank. The CSS asked me to tick “YES” in the Investment category in Parent Asset.

So now What should I fill in:

  1. Interest Income (I supposed 25000 as the fuy up here said)
  2. Current amount in cash, savings, checking, and deposit accounts ( I was thinking 300000)
  3. Current market value of investments (I got confused with this, so should I fill in 300000 for this ?)
9

Investments are things like stocks and bonds, not savings accounts. If your family has any investments in securities, you would put the amount on the Investments line.

The $300,000 would go on the line asking current amount in cash, savings, checking and other deposit accounts. You would also add any cash your family has on hand.

The $25,000 sounds like it is interest income, so it would go on the Interest line along with any other interest received.

10

Guys, I have another question. Can you help me ?

So my dad is working and he will retire in 5 years. Right now my dad hasn’t earn anything from his retirement plan, only his salary. In 5 years he will retire and earn a monthly 1000 dollars as his retirement pension

The CSS asks for participation in retirement plan so what shoul I fill in this box ?

“Current value of tax-deferred retirement, pension, annuity, and savings plans”

11

This is asking for the value of the pension or 401k, not the amount he’ll receive per month. If the value is $50k, that’s what you put.

12

Be certain the house value us 150k. It isn’t what your tax assessment says. It’s basically what your home could sell for tomorrow, without any fixes or upgrades.

13

Oh maybe my post was confused. What i mean was right now my dad only earns his monthly salary. When he retire he will have a retirement salary of 1000 dollars per month till the end of his life. So what should I put in the box.

14

In that box, you put the VALUE currently of these accounts. So, for example, if the current value of your dad retirement accounts is $300,000…that is what you would put. Your dad can access the current value of his retirement accounts online…as they are reported as of the day you file your forms.

This has NOTHING to do with the amount your dad will take as a benefit once he retires…so put that out of your head!

15

Is this for a bank account in the United States? If so, can you please tell me what kind of bank account pays more than 8% interest, tax free? I would like to get in on some of that action.

16

is it more than 8% LOL. the 25000 dollars is just my estimation, cause I’m too lazy to touch the calculator.

17

Ok… $25k of annual interest on $300k works out to an interest rate of 8.33%, if you don’t figure in any compounding.

Again – Is this for a bank account in the United States? If so, can you please tell me what kind of bank account pays more than 8% interest, tax free? I would like to get in on some of that action.

18

Note that this value could very well be zero, because there is no current value or account. This would be the case for traditional pensions, which mostly no longer exist in the US but are common elsewhere. The best US analogue would be Social Security; I might be eligible to draw $1,500 a month for the rest of my life if I applied for benefits today, but there’s no asset to report for financial aid purposes.

19

I can’t imagine a US bank that pays that interest rate on a common account. You’d be lucky to find a quarter of that. So be certain what kind of asset this truly is. One reason this is so important is raw assets are assessed for college EFC snd QRP/Qualified Retirement Plans are not.

20

Guys what about the EFC ? All this time I thought that the it’s the applicants who submit their EFC. But now I figure out it’s actually the university who will calculate the EFC of each applicant.

But in the CSS they did ask: “How much does the student expect to receive from the following sources to pay for educational expenses for the 2019-20 academic year?”. Is this the EFC ?

If it is, what impact does itmake on the difference between the 2 EFC ? For example if the college’s calculated EFC for me is 15k per year, but I said that my family could pay 20k per year, what will be the result ?