So to sum up, each year my family’s income is roughly 18k. I said on CSS that my home’s equitity is 140k.
My parents has 100k on their saving accounts. but on CSS I put down 121k because my mom has 21k under her name on the bank (that 21k is actually my grandmother’s). We have about 15k of jewelry. I said on CSS that I can pay 11k each year for college
I expected to pay about 10k to 12k each year for college. I was worried that my family’s assets are to low but now I’m actually afraid that the 21k inflation in my parents’ saving could cost me a lot more for college.
No one here can even guess. What colleges are you talking about?
What are your GPA and SAT or ACT scores? Asking this because are your college choices realistic ones in terms of acceptance?
Do you have an affordable option in your home country?
ETA…you mention Duke in one of your other threads. Duke is need aware for admissions for international students so your financial need will be considered when your application for admissionis considered.
In one of your other threads you said your family has 4 incomes and asked if it was okay to report only one. Since you’ve been picked for verification you’ll have to show proof of all of them. Schools can use both the $18k income you declared plus the $136k in assets and $140k home equity to determine your EFC. Because two of the incomes are from family businesses it’s impossible to guess whether or not colleges will offer you any need based aid. Do your stats make you eligible for merit anywhere?
my GPA is 4.0/4.0 and my SAT is 1500, with 800 in both Math II and Physics.
I applied for most ly top 20 schools. I did ask them and they all said that I don’t have to proof every income, just send them a non-filer certification and it’s ok.
Every college uses their own methodology of how much they expect students to be able to contribute for college expenses based on parental assets, but it’s often around 6% of assets. Thus, 21k in additional saving would according to the simple 6% formula add about $1260 to your annual expected contribution, not really that much of a relative impact.
When it comes to assets, it can make a big difference how schools treat home equity. Some will count zero, some cap it as a percentage of income, count it only above a threshold, or count is just like cash savings.
If one owns a business the value of the business can be another significant asset.
Depending on the schools policy, they might choose to offer aid in form of loans that need to be paid back instead of scholarships.
I wonder if after reading the family’s savings, jewelry, and equity plus the amount the student says they can pay, colleges strongly suspect that there’s some unreported income somewhere?
Jewelry doesn’t count. But agree that with the parents’ savings, equity, etc, sure makes it seem questionable with 18k income. And we aren’t the pros FA officials are.
A non-filers certification comes from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. You will not be able to file a non-filer’s certification form because you are not a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident nor do you live in the U.S.
Yes they know, I stated to them clearly that I’m an international student. One school told me it was fine with just a wage statement from my dad. One school sent me back a non-filer statement ask my parents to list the income and signed.
One school ask me to submit a signed statement of my parents for self-employed income (this one is easy to get).
Each of the CSS schools has a different formula for calculating their FA, and the NPC are not necessarily reliable when there is a family business.
Home equity and savings are treated differently by different schools. But the fact that OP’s mother is listed as the bank owner of grandmother’s 21K in assets means OP does have to report it (as he did) and the schools will include it, and it will affect the FA calculation.
I think it is more likely that the schools will look at the bank account savings of $121K and home equity of $140K and wonder how the OP expects to contribute $11k per year with only $18k in family income.