Financial Aid Help! Second Home Living Situation

And to the OP…this house would have been listed on your Profile as well…and Profile schools use the Profile info to determine institutional need based aid…not the fafsa.

@thumper1 @twoinanddone I’m sorry for the delay. I have a full-time fast food job, so most days I just come home and crash. As for the mortgage values and such, I guess I do have it all mixed up. The current value of the home is 208,000. The purchase price was 150,000. My parents still own 130,000 on the home, so I’m not sure what number I should have listed or where it should be listed. Looking on the CSS Profile, it looks like parents put that they rent a house at 1250 a month, but also listed that we have a second home (this is the home which I have the above info listed for) which we rent to someone else. I think the fin-aid board might be confused by this matter. My aid appeal was denied so I will have to call the office sometime next week.

Based on what you wrote you have 78k of equity in the house

I understand that the rent on your current apartment is $1250. Even if you say you forgot to add in the mortgage on the second home as an expense, it is highly unlikely that Cornell will reverse it’s decision in denying your appeal. They just are not going to give you additional aid because you have the expense of a second home

While it will be very disappointing, you will have to turn down the Ed admissions. Hopefully you have some affordable RD options.

Where else have you applied? And have you run the NPC on each of them?

They don’t want to pay anything or they won’t pay? Colleges will expect your parents to pay their EFC. Go to the website of every school you applied to and run their Net Price Calculator to get an estimate of your costs. Ask your parents how much they’re willing to contribute. If it’s truly nothing, let us know your stats and maybe we can come up with some options.

@austinmshauri

This family owns a second home with rental income. Unless the net price calculator asks about that…the results won’t be accurate for this student.

How much rent did this second home generate in 2016? It’s very possible that the answer is $0 if you had not yet moved. When did you move out of that his in Kentucky. The rental income from 2016 is what would go on the financial aid forms.

In terms of the asset…@sybbie did the calculations for you. On the Profile, you would have indicated the CURRENT value of the house in Kentucky, and the remaining mortgage balance. It sounds like you did that.

It doesn’t sound like the financial aid department was confused…at all. You have a second home…valued at $208,000 which you could sell. It’s your parent choice to keep that home.

And…this is important. That $78,000 in equity innthat house is REQUIRED to be listed on your FAFSA. I just can’t imagine why you removed that. It is required. It’s a second home. And yes that would add about $5000 or so to your family contribution.

In an above post, you said removing the second house reduced your EFC per FAFSA from $20,000 to $11,000.

I just need to add…that on a $100,000 or so income…a $20,000 family contribution per FAFSA is about what I would expect.

@thumper1, I forgot OP had the FAFSA EFC. They need something to show the parents that the expected contribution won’t be $0. The FAFSA will do, but you’re right that it has to be completed correctly. OP says the 2nd home is listed on the CSS Profile. If the FAFSA is filled out differently, I expect their file will get pulled for verification.