<p>Sorry Nightingale... I wasn't intentionally hijacking your thread...just letting my thoughts flow along, and chipping into the conversation, like I do among friends. Conversations here on CC tend to drift a bit, especially if the original post has been responded to.</p>
<p>Nightingale, I don't think it is THAT rare. I think it depends on your definitions. A number of schools have specific programs for their best applicants. Vagelos at Penn. Brown has something. Colgate has Alumni Memorial Scholars. A number of schools with very limited merit aid - like Hamilton and Scripps use better "need" packages for their scholarship winners who also have need. </p>
<p>I will continue to trumpet "preferential packaging" because I believe it allows middle class kids to go to colleges they could never afford otherwise. It plus merit aid is why my kid had the great choices she had. I understand that she was at the top of the food chain, but I think the procedures are valid nonetheless.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon- I think some posters are skeptical as to the lengths some fin- aid officers are willing to go to get a top flight applicant. I also think you may be unique in that you researched and found a target rich environment. Once found, you exploited it. If you can do it, so can others. I would hate to see people discouraged from doing just what you did. Finding leverage and using it is what my coworker did. He got his daughter into a fine school. If he had simply dismissed this "preferential packaging" as "garbage" or the domain of one in a thousand kids he might now regret it. "texasmom" got her two boys this sort of packaging as noted in one of her previous posts and she readily admits one of her sons did not have stellar stats. Nevertheless, he got a deeply discounted education that other less savvy parents may have paid for completely out of pocket ...owed to thier unwillingness to believe. I believe!</p>
<p>Nightengale & anxiousmom both brought up food for thought -- all ways to save $$$, which I'm all for. Sorry to jump in on hijacking. But I think the savings in car insurance are so huge in states like NJ it could be as substantial as another chunk of financial/merit tuition aid.</p>
<p>Sorry to offend, but I was flowing with the prior post. Stickershock I agree. I view it as a $1500 merit award! Too bad that these costs are not factored in when determining EFC.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Apparently if you've accumulated debt (that can be justified), for example a new roof, and/or a new, but modest, vehicle, needed for work... things of that sort, then the payments for such things may be subtracted from your total income.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Let me change my wording...and I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone. In MOST cases, amassing consumer debt will not be a consideration when your child applies for financial aid. As pointed out above by someone else, even in the case of home equity loans, the amounts would have to be quite large to have an impact on finaid awards. I do imagine that one could get a "preferred package" if one's student were a highly desired student for a particular school anyway. But I do not believe that the consumer debt outlined above would gain most folks much in the need based finaid process. Simply put, I would never advise anyone to assume consumer debt to improve their financial aid packages. It is highly risky and in many cases will not net the student additional money. Unless your debt is due to extreme circumstances, it can be viewed as an optional expense (e.g. If you got a new roof because your old one was blown off in a hurricane, that would be extreme circumstances. If you got a new roof because the old one was looking iffy, that could be viewed as optional.).</p>
<p>The FA offices do not have the flexibility to just consider consumer debt as an offset against assets when assessing eligibility for government need-based aid, even under the rubric of "professional judgment" which does allow for some flexibility in other areas. Sorry to say it so bluntly, but in the absence of genuine, heart-breaking, extremely-rare, special circumstances, taking on consumer debt is a voluntary way you can choose to live beyond your means. If only a high Mastercard balance was all it took to get your kid through college free. Maybe at Big Rock Candy Mountain U.!</p>
<p>What happens in the appeal process? Isn't that the process used by parent's to low-ball (for lack of a better term) the college once you get word of what you're expected to pay. dt123, are you saying PRIVATE colleges cannot rethink a family's finances and lower the EFC?</p>
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<li><p>Private colleges can do anything they want to with their own money ("University Grants", i.e., discounts off sticker price). They are strictly regulated, the same as public colleges, as to how they calculate EFC for disbursing government aid. Government aid is maxed out at about $20,000 a year.</p></li>
<li><p>The appeal process, in one aspect, is used to convince the FA officer that professional judgment is warranted in determining eligibility for government aid. Example, assets on the FAFSA were inflated by an insurance settlement in the base year that will be spent on Mom's heart transplant the following year. Professional judgment will allow the FA office to ignore the settlement. </p></li>
<li><p>The point of this thread is that professional judgment will not be used to offset consumer debt, like high credit card balances or car loans, against assets, or payments on consumer debt against income, absent some special circumstance like this. The OP "heard" from a coworker that going into debt to buy a new roof or better car will allow a professional judgment adjustment, but the overwhelming chorus of replies are that he heard wrong or was told wrong.</p></li>
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