Now…orphans are independent for financial aid purposes for the FAFSA…so unless the grandparents adopted the friend, the family farm would not have been on her aid forms at all.
Some Profile schools DO ask for info about guardians, but it’s unclear how the use that info.
If schools use the Profile or their own form…there is a LOT more information the colleges use to calculate need based aid…a LOT. Plus…these schools are awarding THEIR money, and the can do so using whatever formula they choose to use.
And that is why the net price calculators are a better bet than the FAFSA EFC.
This does illustrate why you don’t just go on general media articles for fin aid understanding. Or what friends think they know. You need to be further educated, to form reasonable expectations.
The Fafsa does not determine what a college gives in aid. Many, many colleges don’t have the funds. And the Meet Full Need schools, using the CSS, rightly look at more than the Fafsa does, for its limited purpose.
We’d all like our discretionary spending and investing to go on as before. But the schools aren’t in the business of underwriting that.
I’m not sure whether OP’s comment about a 15k discrepancy or 12k in sub loans refers to 4 years. There’s also the unsub loans- it’s all borrowing, just a difference in how interest accumulates. Most kids who need it are taking both.
Parent unprotected assets (not in Qualified Retirement Plans) are tapped at roughly 6%/year. And self employment, owning a business, or certain investments like a second home (and if it generates income) are treated differently.
This info is out there, maybe not from Forbes or some consultant who wants their blog to sound authoritative.
@thumper1 I seem to remember that the farm was in the girls name and that she inherited it from her late parents. Her grandparents moved in to raise her and run the farm. All that was years ago. Way back then parents assets counted for way more than kids assets. I know of one who transferred their home to their child so that the child would get more financial aid. Not all that long ago there used to be a loophole where if the child was living independently they would get a boat load of financial aid. After junior year of high school, parents would get together and rent their kids an apartment (even if they never lived in it) so that they would qualify as independent on the FAFSA. That worked for a few years until the colleges caught on with the increase of independent freshmen. That loophole was closed. Even after the loophole was closed some parents were still doing that hoping for more aid. Another friend of mine, worked the system too. Her dad owned a successful business so before the first one started college, he transferred title of his business to his parents. They got a lot of financial aid that way and when they graduated, daddy bought them each a brand new car.
@thumper1 - Yes, I am aware we have significant assets, and yes, our 529s should completely cover their in-state tuition plus all expenses, for all four years. We did not think our kids would qualify for need-based aid, not am I complaining about any of it. I just found it extremely interesting that of the dozens of people we’ve known with older kids, no one has ever candidly discussed college financing. I just hoped that starting this discussion would bring out more things we assumed wrongly, just to understand how very much, or little, some of us start off knowing about the process.
I think for a lot of people, discussing college financial aid might be just as sensitive a topic as, say, how much money you make.
It seems like a verboten topic for most people. I can imagine having a discussion with my closest friends about the obscene cost of college, and maybe even our EFC, but the general universe of acquaintances, other parents with kid friends, etc? Nope.
We NEVER…and I mean NEVER discussed specifics of college financing with our family or our friends. If someone asked a specific question…we would answer it…but that was it. Folks did know that we paid for college out of current earnings…and our kids took the Direct Loan. But that was it.
This forum has a lot of folks who are knowledgeable about college finances. Or at least they have decent information.
We did recommend the book “Paying for College Without Going Broke” which is a good read. It doesn’t have all the answers…but it’s still good.
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(1) When an elite school claims all financial need is met, they mean “all financial need” as they deem, not what is indicated bu FAFSA. I
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Why would a college be expected to use FAFSA to determine need and give out their institutional aid when FAFSA is such an incomplete application? It doesn’t capture home equity, it doesn’t adequately capture the self-employed/business deductions, it doesn’t capture a non-custodial parent’s income/assets, etc.
A very close friend of mine told me what he has paid in tuition for his 3 kids, 2 of them having gone to Catholic high school and then to OOS colleges. The youngest went to public hs and then only one semester of OOS college (and then got a job and his company paid for most of college). So for 2 kids, $400k. They borrowed a lot of that and the parents paid it. This family is very comfortable with debt, much more than I am.
This conversation was when my kids where just heading to college. I was in shock, but knew I’d never borrow that and I haven’t. These kids could have gone to a lower ranked GA college, but not UGA or GaTech, so they chose OOS. Honestly, all three kids are doing very well in their careers so it was money well spent (borrowed).
RE#27
I went to a school district board meeting last year and there was a special acknowledgement (from the head of the board and school principal) of a senior girl who got “a full scholarship to Stanford!!” Unless I had been on CC, I would have assumed that “full scholarship to Stanford!!” was a real thing. After all, the head of school board and school principal surely know about such things? Maybe not…
Also could have been an athletic scholarship to Stanford, which is actually a ‘Grant in Aid’ according to the NCAA but always referred to as a scholarship.
I’m kind of an open book when it comes to college finances. I don’t agree that people won’t talk about the costs but would rather believe general media stuff about all the unclaimed scholarships just ripe for the picking and ignore everything else. I’ve tried to give my friends a “head’s up,” but honestly, most would rather listen to other friends who tell them what they want to hear. And yep, that includes stuff that is just nuts, like the cousin of a I’ve been working with low income students in higher ed for quarter century plus now, put two of my own through college, but hey, what do I know?
And, yes, @vineyardview that’s what I hear as well. Lots of times, I get the feeling that the high school is the worst place to get information about college financial aid. I remember hearing the amounts of scholarships earned being proudly announced at graduation. Well, I know my kid applied to 7 colleges, got automatic merit amounts at each, was asked to list them all in her grad forms. Obviously, take that times how many kids? Yeah. Lots of scholarship money. Maybe that’s what the media is talking about when it discusses “unclaimed” scholarships!
I had the exact same reaction to “in the heights”!! I was mumbling “ they don’t give merit scholarships- it must have been need based!! “ But, I got to see Lin Manuel Miranda in it so all is forgiven
There are indeed unclaimed scholarships in our area. There are 6 full tuition scholarships to a local CC per year at my D’s school but only 2 were taken. If you have good stat and aim very low, there are actually merit aids available. It may be not the school you want to attend though.
People can get ugly during college financial discussions which is why so few talk about them with true candor. There is an absolutely true element of unfairness to it all. At the same time, I have smart, hard working kids and if a small, well ranked private school wants them enough to help, we will take the help… though not without some guilt.
We are a family that has been well treated by the “full need school” (at least so far) in that our eldest is in a school that matched our EFC and that we can pay our EFC. The first year was a big grant. We pay less than most families but that’s not to say it isn’t a hefty sacrifice “for us” to come up with that money. The next year, she picked up a donor scholarship and a departmental scholarship which actually covered more than financial aid and so the grant was dropped the last 3 years. The donor scholarship is still charity but it’s at least merit based, professor recommended charity if that makes sense. She will graduate with under 6k in debt which is good because we won’t be the financial cushion that so many of her friends have.
Our middle child only has one acceptance and financial package at the moment but we were pleased that the “not full need… need aware” school managed to come within 1k of our EFC with the help of son earning an 80k merit award to soften the blow. We will see what the rest of the schools look like in March.
We have wealthier friends who I know are full pay. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t trade places with us just as I’m not eager to trade places with friends we have that get 100 percent of their college kids costs covered. We are in what I guess you’d call a “sweet spot” where schools seem to accurately access what we can actually do. I think it’s a narrow spot.
