<p>..Or less aid?</p>
<p>Approximations, if relevant:</p>
<p>Purchase Price: 440,000
Market Value: $480,000
Current Debt: $350,000</p>
<p>Thanks. :)</p>
<p>You need to run some FAFSA and CSS Profile calculators to see how this might affect your situation. There are good ones at [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Calculate Your Cost – BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>Is this your primary residence or a second property? </p>
<p>If it is your primary residence (the one you live in), it is not reported in ANY WAY on the FAFSA. For the Profile, the $130,000 equity would be what matters, I believe.</p>
<p>If this is a SECOND home, that equity would be listed on the FAFSA. It would also be listed on the Profile as well as the equity in your primary residence, I believe.</p>
<p>I agree…put in the numbers in an EFC calculator.</p>
<p>Many schools using the Profile also have some home equity protection allowance for your primary residence…so the full value would not be considered in THEIR formulas.</p>
<p>The above are correct. And, I’m not sure if you’re asking this but FAFSA isn’t going to give a student a better EFC just because the family has a high mortgage payment. I don’t know what CSS Profile will do.</p>
<p>Having a second property (as noted above, not your primary residence) will generally get you less aid, regardless of the mortgage or the monthly payments on it. Why? Because it’s an additional asset that your parents can sell, eliminating the mortgage payments and then receive the equity on it that could be used to fund your education.</p>
<p>Buying investment or vacation property is a choice. If your family chooses to use its money in that manner, rather than pay for your schooling, that’s your choice, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll get to use other people’s money (which is what FA is after all) to pay for college.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert, but I am a homeowner who has had to check out a number of schools with respect to their treatment of home equity for the purposes of determining EFC. I have 2 observations:</p>
<p>1) FAFSA-only schools are easy: home equity is not included for the primary residence, unless the school also requires a supplemental FA application that asks for mortgage/home equity information.</p>
<p>2) Anything other than FAFSA-only schools depends upon the school. There are no standards that can be counted on. Some schools have upper limits, some have lower limits, some don’t include it at all. Published information from schools about how they determine how much home equity is included as an asset is virtually non-existent. It would be best to contact individual schools to determine treatment. Even then, some schools won’t tell you or will give a vague answer. </p>
<p>It is also difficult to tell from CC anecdotes because working backwards from an EFC to determine the impact of home equity carries with it great uncertainty, even if the poster provides enough personal financial information–and I’m not suggesting they should.</p>
<p>Sometimes you just have to apply and be accepted to know for sure. DD has a couple of schools that fall into that category and we are waiting for the FA packages to arrive.</p>
<p>Assuming this is an investment property or 2nd home and not a primary residence (it’s not clear which one it is from the OP’s post) then the net value is $130,000. This is the value that would be reported on FAFSA as an asset.</p>