<p>Who determines home equity?</p>
<p>If you’re talking about the value of the home as reported on Profile, the parents determine this. There are a variety of methods that can be used (appraisal, zillow, comps from a real estate agent, or just a wild guess) but the idea is that the value should be one that can be supported if questioned.</p>
<p>Home equity would be the total value of the home minus (mortgage plus reasonable selling costs).</p>
<p>How about the home index on the Finaid site? I was told by someone you had to use that.</p>
<p>That’s another way to calculate home equity, by applying the Federal index, but it’s so out of date that any home purchased 15-20 years ago will likely have a wildly different actual value than what you’d get using the index.</p>
<p>Some colleges will ask the purchase price of your home (can’t remember if that’s a question on Profile or not) and then apply an index, either the Federal one or one of their own, to obtain their calculated home equity value. Other colleges (Stanford is one, I believe) will apply a factor to your AGI, such as 110%, to calculate a home equity value.</p>