<p>I know financial aid can be amazing or awful depending on where you sit on the income border. A friend of mine was accepted to University of Rochester and to Cornell. While he would like to consider both for academic merit, there is the issue of FA. Both schools could be uncomfortable financially, but URoc significantly less so. Because both schools are strong in the sciences (chem and biochem), is there any justifying paying 30-40k EFC annually for Cornell? Also, if assets have hurt financial aid and the parents would move the money into retirement funds for next year, would this affect the package of a ~100k income family? Has anyone had this situation that is comfortable sharing? Cornell FA officers did not address this issue when asked (understandably). This is clearly a last minute, crucial situation, so any input would be amazing, please!</p>
<p>The family can use Cornell’s online FA estimator to see what different changes in their situation could mean for financial aid. However, I have to wonder, if there’s a big drop in the family’s assets from one year to the next, whether a school might ask for an explanation (and documentation), and I don’t know how they’d feel about that one. Keep in mind that only 3-5% of the parents’ assets are considered available to pay toward the student’s education. So if they managed to shelter 100K of assets, they’d reduce their EFC by at most $5K. </p>
<p>How much lower is the family’s contribution at URoc?</p>
<p>You have to be careful about moving money into retirement accounts. In most cases retirement contributions in excess of certain baseline amount will get added back into the family’s AGI.</p>
<p>U of Rochester gives generous merit aid that Cornell will not. Income & assets will not effect that.</p>
<p>WayOutWestMom, they’re not trying to remove the money from income, only assets, in which case contributing it to a protected retirement asset should work.</p>
<p>The difference is 9k but significant enough to be a halt to that plan (on going to Cornell). I will definitely suggest they use the calculator though, thank you so much!</p>
<p>I think they’d have to protect/lose about 200K in assets in order to see a 9K difference in financial aid.</p>