If your income goes up, so will your cost at Emory. Financial aid is based on need, after all, so if it appears from your income that you need less, you will most definitely receive less.
I’d guess this is something you should explain to your parents, so you’re sure they understand: what Emory promises for your first year is not guaranteed for subsequent years, unless your income stays the same. But if your income changes, so will your award.
I would say that nothing is guaranteed, but Emory will probably tell you that if your family’s financial circumstances remain relatively consistent from year-to-year, your need-based aid probably will as well.
With an income of 92k, most top colleges would give nearly free tuition because they don’t count home equity. Emory, however, counts home equity heavily in their calculations, so that explains why you “only” got about 50% of the cost of attendance in grants.
It looks like your 4-year cost will be about $130k (including loans and work study), but only you and your parents can decide if that’s affordable or not.
Au contraire, most top colleges do consider primary home equity at least to some degree in the financial aid process.
The next proce calculators are NOT NOT NOT going to be accurate for,your family. Your oarents own businesses. The NPCs are accurate for regular w-2 wage earners…but not for the self employed or business owners.
In many cases your family businesses can take deductions allowed by the IRS for tax purposes. But these are not allowed for financial aid purposes and are added back in as income.
With an income of $72,000 a year, and a family of three, I would guess your EFC per FAFSA to be in the $20,000 a year or more range…depending on what gets added back in from the business deductions.
Agree with others…many top,colleges DO consider home equity of the primary residence. All consider real estate other than the primary residence. Does the family business also have real,estate?
There are some very well endowed schools,that do give need based aid to families with income in the $150,000 a year range…or more. BUT this really has little to,do,with whether they do or don’t consider primary home equity, it is man inky because these are very well endowed schools with the financial resources to provide need based aid to higher wage earners.
The vast majority of college do not have need based aid that is this generous.
@thumper1 and @CourtneyThurston
My husband worked a lot more hours in 2015, so our income went up to about $73k. Our EFC is about $8300. We are a family of 3, no home and assets under the protection limit.
Is it possible that it’s correct for the OP?
Not sure. We were a family of 2 and also had assets under the protection limit. EFC was still 17k. I don’t think one more person is enough to tank it all the way down to 8k. But I could be wrong.
In any case, Texas is stingy with FA and Texas mostly gives loans, not grants, so I wouldn’t turn down Emory since UT is likely to cost about the same, and I’d keep the ED agreement.(If you turn it down for financial reasons and realize UT is the same cost, won’t you regret turning down Emory?)
Im with mom2CK on this: it’s likely your parents earn more but get itemized deductions in.
So I was basically a 110% on Emory until I had a talk haha…
So I had a pretty in-depth discussion with my parent’s. They really weren’t kidding when they said that the 23-25k they had to pay wasn’t a really big deal. Business deductions go a long way I guess lol. Not only that, but we recently filed our tax forms and it turns out our AGI went down significantly ( good for fafsa ) but our income went up ( bad for css ).
Problem is this: They said that if I went to UT they could cover the costs more and I could graduate with no debt or at least very little debt (5-7k-ish). If I went to Emory I would probably graduate with 25-27k debt. So no longer is it an issue about my parent’s but an issue about whether I want to get in that much debt lol…
To be honest, I’m comfortable with that amount of debt because I genuinely like emory; but this could this just be a result of my high school naivete.
Is it stupid to go in 20k more debt for a school that probably offers similar employment opportunities but I think is a better fit for me?
@dodgersmom
UT FA results tend to come out late March/ mid April. Are you telling me it’s OK after paying the enrollment fee a month before I can call Emory and be like " yo we can’t afford you", sever the agreement, and just go to UT?
I’m not saying it’s “okay” . . . but what are they going to do about it?
My understanding is that when it comes to private colleges, they communicate with each other. So if you back out of an ED agreement with College A, in order to attend College B, College B is going to find out, and you’re going to find yourself with NO school to attend.
But state universities? I don’t think they know or care about your ED agreement with a private college.
Here’s a thread that discusses this issue:
I guess the best advice is to communicate with Emory if you decide that UT is simply going to be more affordable, rather than just bailing.
Emory has better resources and smaller classes because it’s a private school. UT is a terrific, incredible university, but it is public, so resources have to be divided for way more students - money goes toward “serviceable” rather than “comfortable/topnotch” at the undergraduate level. Public money has to be spent wisely and no-frills is as efficient as “nice”. Emory can spend its money the way it wants and in order to justify its price they have to be “more” in several areas than a public university. The difference can be felt in class sizes, teaching support, support staff (tutors, writing center), quality of advising, support for student initiatives, dorms, etc.
You signed an ED agreement though and you already said you could afford it when you paid the enrollment fee. So it’s a matter of keeping your word. You can’t just go “Sorry” now.
“You signed an ED agreement though and you already said you could afford it when you paid the enrollment fee. So it’s a matter of keeping your word. You can’t just go “Sorry” now.”
Bingo.
Don’t be fooled by the AGI. Some deductions would be added back to your income in FAFSA calculation.
The colleges would add back in those deductions from the business…not the FAFSA formula. There are deductions allowed by the IRS for tax purposes which colleges do NOT allow in their formulas for financial,aid purposes.
Any contributions to pretax retirement accounts WILL be added back into the FAFSA calculations. How much did your parents contribute to their retirement accounts last year?
Yeah so y’all were right my EFC jumped to to $22,300, basically guaranteeing UT will be full pay.
Finally payed the deposit and committed to Emory today. Hopefully the FA office doesn’t screw me in the years to come
Thanks all!
congrats… 
BTW…the word is “paid,” not “payed.”