<p>Does anyone know how you find a list of schools that DON'T include the value of your house when calculating your financial aid? I know Harvard and Princeton don't, and it makes sense, since you shouldn't have to re-mortgage (or sell!) your home to be able to afford to go to college.
The other thing is that it penalizes people living in big cities. A house in a decent area of Philadelphia, say, is going to be worth that the exact same house in Flint, Michigan or Baton Rouge, LA. But one person shouldn't be forced into debt and the other not!
Anybody have some info on this?</p>
<p>Any college or university that uses only the FAFSA for financial aid determination. </p>
<p>Take all of the CSS Profile schools off your list, and you won’t need to worry about hone equity.</p>
<p>Sorry. I should have said… this is for a CANADIAN student, not an American one. But thanks anyway.</p>
<p>Maa…the thing the colleges consider is home equity, if they consider it at all. Are you suggesting that someone with a very large amount of equity in their home should not perhaps consider tapping into some of that equity to pay for college? Further, are you suggesting that this large amount of home equity be ignored so this student can get need based aid?</p>
<p>thumper1…I see your point and feel properly chastised. But why is it, then, that some schools consider your home as equity and some do not?</p>
<p>Some schools have very large endowments and are able to offer more generous aid. But in MOST cases, the first in line to pay for college is the family.</p>
<p>Thumper1… One problem is what happens if you are unemployed but have a large amount of home equity? I doubt a bank would let me raid the piggy bank if I have no income. Unforunately, I did not plan on being unemployed.</p>
<p>I guess the real answer is that the house could be sold. In reality, that is probably not an unreasonable possibility.</p>
<p>If you are unemployed but have debt, freeing up some assets is often necessary. How else to meet expenses?</p>
<p>Actually, if you have significant home equity, it is possible to get a loan when you’re unemployed. The terms will not be as good as if you are employed, but those loans are out there. We had to use the same type of loan when we bought our current house because we had to carry the mortgage on our last house at the same time (for a few months). </p>
<p>If schools with large endowments didn’t take the home into considerations (or small businesses, or any other income streams or assets), the aid process would be really unbalanced. Otherwise, people would simply dump all their savings into the house just before filing the CSS. </p>
<p>Consider two families that live in New York or California, areas with high home values. One Paid of their million dollar home, the other purchased recently, and has $200,000 equity (20%). If the family income is roughly the same, would you argue that these families are in the same financial position? I certainly wouldn’t. Now consider another family with the same income that rents a condo or apartment; they have no equity. Are they in the same position as even the second family? I think not.</p>
<p>If the family income is cut in half, the first family tighten’s their belts and works with what they have. The second family risks being unable to make mortgage payments, but could ultimately cash out on the house if necessary. The third family has nothing to fall back on.</p>
<p>maa, I don’t know about aid for Canadian families, but for US citizens, most schools use the FAFSA, which determines eligibility for federal aid. CSS, where we see home equity, it used by colleges with large endowments. They want a more detailed picture before they spend their own money. You might not want to refinance your home, but if they give the money to someone else, they probably don’t even have that option.</p>
<p>maa1957 -</p>
<p>If this Canadian student is not a US legal permanent resident, and has not been living and studying in one of the states in the US that will award in-state status without regard to immigration status, then this student will be applying as an international. Some colleges and universities do have different policies for Canadians than they do for other internationals. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to search for that kind of information. The student will have to check website-by-website.</p>
<p>One place to get started on his/her research would be the Canada sub-forum inside the International Students Forum. Here is the link: [Canada</a> - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/canada/]Canada”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/canada/)</p>
<p>The system is not completely fair. There are a lot of people who get caught in the cross hairs where it truly is not fair, and in those cases one has to ask the financial aid officers to use Professional Judgement to make a determination.</p>
<p>Most schools do not include ANY primary home equity because all they use is FAFSA. They also sometimes give full need to some students, the ones they want most. They may even give merit money when the student doesn’t need a cent. There is nothing “fair” about this sort of thing. You apply to a variety of schools and see which ones will consider you worthy of paying YOU to come there, or how much YOU have to pay to do so. It’s a free market.</p>
<p>Many CSS schools do limit the portion of equity they include based on income. Conceivably you could have a person who bought a home in SoCal 30 years ago and it later is worth many time the original price, but if that person lost their job, that equity could be capped at some portion of their income.</p>
<p>I have seen many Canadian kids get some forms of aid at Ivies and well respected schools like Colgate.</p>
<p>I just have to ask…is this student applying to some Canadian school? I sure hope so. We know more than a handful of students who are going to
college in Canada because it was less expensive.</p>
<p>This reply is a long time coming but, yes, my son is applying to several Canadian universities. Also, to a few in the States and a few in the UK. We’ll see where he gets an offer and he’ll go to the best place we can afford.
Thanks for your input.</p>