What you consider the house and what Cornell considers the house may be different. It’s income producing property, so Cornell might classify it as both a primary residence and an asset.
If you graduate from CMU your debt will be the $27k student loans. But at Cornell you’ll have $27k student loans and $42k in PLUS loans. That will be over $70k with interest. What’s your plan if you transfer to Cornell and your parents are turned down for a loan before you graduate? You’ll have lost the financial aid package at CMU. Is there another college within commuting distance of your home that you could transfer to so you could finish your degree?
What happens if your loan payments are $1,000/month and you can’t make them? Your parents can’t afford that or you wouldn’t have to borrow for Cornell, but if they cosign they’re responsible. Have you read up on [PLUS loans]( Mapping Your Future: Delinquency and default for Direct PLUS Loans)? If you don’t pay, their checks be garnished. If they lose $1,000/month from their checks, how will they pay the taxes on that $700k house? If you’re in NYS, I think the limit is 2 years before a lien can be put on your home. If you don’t pay, your house can be sold at a public auction.
You want to be a businessman? Your first important financial decision is deciding between a $50/month repayment that’s on your shoulders alone, or a ~$1,000/month repayment that’s on your low income, physically unwell parents. Appeal the financial aid package, but if they don’t come down to the ballpark of the net cost of CMU then it doesn’t matter what else Cornell offers. You can’t afford it.
The part that is NOT your primary residence is NOT considered part of your primary residence. If you are renting out part of your house…it’s rental…the income needs to be included on your FAFSA and Profile forms. Did you do that?
Is this an apartment in a multifamily house? Or what? If so, do your parents include the rental portion on their taxes?
Both are great schools.
Look…if you can afford to attend Cornell, then go to Cornell. If not…you will need to make a different choice.
Not touching the Cornell vs CMU debate, but if you “think” your parents will get the loans for you then you should find out if they are actually willing and able to do so (before you commit to Cornell). Wherever those loans will come from (could be HELOC or 2nd mortgage or Parent Plus loans or whatever), that lender will need to believe your parents alone are capable of repaying allll that money on their income.
IMO, Cornell FA already gave OP a pretty nice FA package (most likely due to OP is a guaranteed transfer). Even in regular admission cycle, Cornell will matches other Ivies’ FA (plus Stanford, MIT) only but not CMU.
OP seems very much determined going to Cornell business school.
700k equity in 2-family house sounds like plenty of money. Since OP never mentioned mortgage, I’d assume the house is already paid off (likely OP’s parent bought the 2-family house in around 300k range in the 90’s, i.e. well before real estate boom).
OP also said in another thread that “my parent will pay for it, no debt”. I’d think Cornell FA will give OP institution loan to cover the 13k difference.
I want to remind the OP that he has a younger sibling ( I am assuming the fourth person in the household is a sibling) to consider. It is highly unfair if chasing his dream hurts his sibling chances of going to college. Staying at CMU will increase the odds his parents can help the next kid. Also staying at CMU might leave him in the position to help his sibling pay for college if needed.
From Cornell point of view, they offered a good FA package. Their goal is only offer enough FA for a student to accept. While the OP doesn’t like it, he appears willing to accept it and feels the school is worth more than CMU.
I wish the OP luck. With a net worth of close to one million it will be a long shot. Who knows how the illness will factor in.
Thanks. Everyone mostly hit on valid, accurate points.
I will do my best to find another minimum wage job. The one i have right now is strict on my hours.
I will have some subsidized loans but it won’t be much. I have many uncles and aunts (8) who’re able to help that understand the situation I’m in, who have lent money to my parents to borrow in the past. They will be able to do so for me too now. They understand the situation I’m in. Whatever remains, my parents or I will be forced to take out loans, though I hope it won’t be too much because of the interest.
My plan is to live with my parents after college and pay back all those who funded me, including parents. 90% of Cornell Dyson students reported their post grad salary, and the mean is $70,000. After taxes and the most meager living expenses (No car bc I take trains, no luxury spending) It will most likely be halved to 35k. It will most likely take me 2 years hopefully to repay the bulk of what I spent back, which my parents are fine with.
The speculation on when my parents bought the house in the 90s is correct. As for the floor my parents are renting above me, it is part of my primary residence. It is a two-family house. A “secondary residence” would be another piece of property detached.
Good point about my younger sibling. But I won’t allow that to stop me from reaping what I worked so hard for. He is four years younger than me, and like me, he will have to think things out for himself. He is four years younger so once he graduates high school, I will too for Cornell and will most likely be in or soon be entering the work force. Like someone said, I am pretty much determined to go there. I know plenty of people face situations like I am in. I only lay my hopes in that one day this investment will pay off.
And someone else hit on some points of how to approach the appeal. I’ll try to keep it concise. But the two reasons boil down to: the severe extent of my father’s cancer, and my family’s inability to work because of it. I know many people appeal to no avail, but I hope they can help me, no matter what the amount.
In another thread you said “my parents can afford it, no debt”?? I’m getting the feeling you are just annoyed the Cornell is not making your COA the same as CMU.
But you need to think like a business person here and not a teenager before you pull the plug at CMU.
1- the mean first year earnings. How many kids reported, how many did not, what’s the range?
2- Being in debt to your entire family- owing Aunts and Uncles, etc. And what does that mean for junior and senior year? What happens if god forbid one of THEM has a health crises, and can’t lend you the money for your last two years? What happens if one of their kids needs a bail out? I know what big, generous families are like- I’m lucky to be part of one myself- but at the end of the day, for my aunts and uncles, their own kids come first (as well they should). So think very carefully about you needing three years worth of help from them.
3- I cannot envision a scenario where you pay off this debt in two years. First of all, you could get a job with a company based near your parents home and three months later, they want to transfer you to Sacramento or Dayton or St. Louis (i.e. someplace where you will need to rent an apartment). Or a year into your job you get promoted to Boston- and the job comes with a 5K raise. If you are lucky enough to find that 70K job near your parents where you can live at home for the long term, you will find that you STILL have expenses-- paying your share of health insurance for example.
4- You have romanticized Cornell- which is lovely and sweet- but what happens the first time you flunk a quiz or it’s snowy and gloomy and you’re in a bad mood- and you start to look back with nostalgia at your incredibly cheap deal at CMU? You have to get a grip. Your family has had some financial setbacks, you have a fantastic deal at a major research university, and instead of digging in and making the most of CMU you are pining away for a university that you just cannot afford.
Is this how your future business-self is going to make financial decisions- emotion not data and rational thinking? I doubt it.
5- Have your younger sibling create a thread asking for parents here to post about how their older siblings spent down all the families resources on college and there was nothing left by the time they graduated HS. There will be thousands of responses.
@thumper1 I’m not trying to argue against you but I’ve believed what my dad told me for a long time. If anything i could choose to sleep in my living room and rent our my room my brother and I share to some tenant. So you’re going to consider that a secondary residence? It is part of my primary residence unit. Prove me wrong because I’m not convinced.
@123Mom123 I said that because I didn’t want people trying to convince me to stay at CMU. Before I was looking for career opportunities that Cornell could offer that CMU couldn’t, not reasons (though valid) for me to stop considering cornell altogether.
@blossom Very valid first two points, but nothing is guaranteed. I’ll do what I have to do if another problem arises. So many grads work on Wall Street in AEM unless they pursue some other career that doesn’t have a huge street presence. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and effort, and even then it is still not easy, but definitely possible, to break into. I don’t expect to be such a nomad, but if it does happen then it will take me longer to pay back my education.
You’re right. I did romanticize about Cornell. Won’t deny that. But that has caused me some pretty bad problems in CMU because of the expectation to leave. But I am being rational. Cornell is better as a business school and I have plans to double major in something else.
My younger sibling is out of the story. I won’t disclose details about him but i will reveal more about myself.
The net worth of any space that is rented out to someone other than a family member must reported on FAFSA as an asset if the space, even if it is within the family home, has its own entrance, kitchen and bath.
And any income from renting the space must also be reported.
This is guidance that came from the Dept. of Education several years ago, and it differentiates between a separate rental unit and a single room in a home.
So @MathFudgy is correct about his bedroom, but not about the floor of the home that is leased out (unless, of course, that floor is leased to a relative or does not have its own entrance, kitchen and bath facilities).
If you want to be a businessman, it’s time you started to think like one. Business people consider all possible resources and expenditures before committing to a high cost project. For your family, those expenditures include your brother’s college education. You can’t just brush it aside. If your parents have a borrowing limit of $60k before they have to start hitting up relatives for loans, $30k of that should be available for you and $30k should be set aside for your brother.
Cornell isn’t expecting your parents to sell their home, empty their savings, or raid their retirement accounts. That’s all you. If Cornell costs $21k/year after all other grants and loans and your parents are cosigning for you, that’s $63k plus interest. With the $27k federal student loans, that brings your debt to $90k. Some businesses do credit checks before they hire people, and those with high debt are considered high risk.
If your parents cosign $63k for you, it’s only fair for your brother to have the same opportunity. Disregarding the fact that your parents may not even qualify to borrow all $63k for you, much less an additional $63k for him, you’re saying you’re okay with your disabled, chronically ill parents cosigning ~$130k of loans? Why would you ask them to do that when you could graduate from CMU with less than $30k in debt for you and $0 debt for them?