<p>My father makes $250,000+ a year, but my younger brother and I will be entering college a year apart from each other, and this will be expected to put some strain on my family's ability to contribute to both our tuitions (looking at high-tuition schools).</p>
<p>My question is, does the fact that my brother and I are only a year apart qualify us for some sort of aid? I know that my father's income doesn't exactly translate to much aid, but he's only been making that for the last 2 years and hasn't been very wise financially.</p>
<p>Also, he's been showing me money growth calculations on how much better it would be to invest $200,000 at 8% growth rate per annum and end up with an extra $1.2 million in assets by the time I'm 45 rather than "wasting" it on an Ivy League education. </p>
<p>First, tell him to add in a 5-6% inflation rate, and your 8% isn't much at all. 1.2 million might seem like a lot now, but you're really not getting that much when you're 45, specially when the dollar is going to hell, as it has been. It is really more like 450k in today's dollars. Not that much in the long run. Secondly, you aren't going to get any, or much need-based aid. IDK how much your dad has in a business, assets, etc, but I wouldn't count on any aid. </p>
<p>Show him some simple income statements
IDK what field you are going into, but point out that the starting salary for an Ivy league MBA breaks 100k. 10 year median of a harvard MBA is over 1 mil. What else does he need to know?</p>
<p>They do count siblings in college when calculating finaid. There are calculators out there that will estimate this sort of info.</p>
<p>Assuming not: There are flaws in your father's logic - some of which have already been pointed out. Here is another - You are not saving 45K, you are saving 45k, less what the state schools would cost. Also, some of the state schools are over subscribed, making a 4 year graduation rather unlikely.</p>
<p>If you are good enough to get into an ivy, consider going down a step to schools that offer merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Not true. My friends parents have a net income of 130k and they are paying 12k/year for their son at princeton. He has one sibling in college, but they took absolutely all of the money out of their bank accounts and put it into retirement (which is not considered in many need blind cases). They also have a 350k house as their asset(s).</p>
<p>There's a difference between net worth and yearly income. Networth includes all holdings, like a house. Let's assume that the OP's networth is above $250,000 because of his/her family's house.</p>
<p>And Hopkins is need blind, their policies are weird. There are other factors such as number of dependents that are considered.</p>
<p>college kid - of the schools my son is considering - the following offer some sort of merit aid - Caltech, U of Chicago, WashU and Harvey Mudd. </p>
<p>Yes, I've told him that he has to factor inflation into the calculations, but he still insists that quite a bit of money will be left over.</p>
<p>And I already kind of figured that my dad's net worth (much more than 250,000k) precluded any merit aid. Consider me a drowning kid flailing for a piece of driftwood.</p>
<p>Somehow, I've got to convince him.... :) Thanks anyways.</p>