<p>How accurate are the calculators on college websites. Given that home equity and retirement accounts do not count, there shouldn't be much of a difference. A person I know just got back an indication of financial for early decision and it was just 1/3rd of the amount on the calculator. That is huge.</p>
<p>Anyone.</p>
<p>The more exotic your taxes the more unlikely the calculator is accurate. Calculator results from self employed parents or those who own a business can be wildly different. Also, the more data the NPC asks for, the more likely it will be accurate.</p>
<p>Home equity and retirement accounts don’t count for fafsa. My understanding is profile, and perhaps a school’s own finaid form, ask for these amounts. How these amounts are treated varies between schools. Probably depends on whether a school deems the amounts atypical/excessive.</p>
<p>Yes, some schools, even profile schools, don’t consider home equity at all. And for schools that do consider home equity, how much they take into account varies widely.</p>
<p>If parental income is from real estate or small business, do a second run using revenue before business or work related deductions as a “worst case” financial aid scenario, since some colleges’ financial aid offices add back these deductions to income.</p>
<p>If the parents are divorced, include all of the income and assets of both parents’ households, including that of new spouses that they may have subsequently married, in the net price calculator inputs, unless the school uses only FAFSA or explicitly does not consider the non-custodial parent. Generally, kids of divorced parents should expect need-based financial aid to be more likely to be insufficient, because divorced parents’ household finances are typically in worse condition than typical for their income level.</p>
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Given that home equity</p>
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<p>Some CSS schools do count home equity</p>
<p>My daughters’ two schools only use FAFSA, and both calculators were exactly correct. Of course, we got no need based aid at all, so it is easy to disqualify you from something. The NPC did include the correct merit aid and state grants.</p>
<p>Artie, what school? The NPCs are relatively new and there are some that do not work as well as others. We’ d love to know which schools don’t have theirs well calibrated. </p>
<p>Also, as others have said, if there are complicated financial issues, owning a business, step parents, NCPs, and if you answer the PROFILE that you can pay a lot more than what you might be required by forumula, the numbers could be way off.</p>
<p>Sometimes calculators don’t take other things into account such as taking a qualfied plan withdrawal . When doing a quickie NPC, it’s easy to miss things. Doing PROFILE, the questions are agonizingly to the point of each possibility and asking for even more.</p>