Thanks but that doesn’t show each school’s methodology, nor whether they have moved to a percent of annual income for their need based institutional methodology.
From the linked article:
Assets are assessed at around 5%, meaning in general you can expect 5% of the total value to be added to the expected family contribution. So a $100,000 asset would add $5,000 to your expected contribution (and reduce your financial aid accordingly).
If this is about how schools that use Profile calculate need-based aid, then I would say it’s waaaay too general. Each school can have their own formula for determining institutional need-based aid, so it’s misleading to make a blanket statement that assets “are assessed at around 5%.”
The good news is that not all colleges that take the CSS profile treat home equity the same - some don’t even count it at all. So how do you know whether your home value will affect your financial aid?
True, different Profile schools treat home equity in different ways, and in my experience “some” not counting home equity at all in reality means a few, as in a great minority.
It did for me. I entered my equity and income and then they told me how much of my equity would count. I tested it using easy numbers (including a test with 100k income so I could see percentages based on income more easily).
Ok thx. I’m not comfortable giving my information to Edmit, which it seems is required to use their site. No idea whether their info is accurate either. Hopefully pathnottaken has a primary source for their statement.
Additional notes on Edmit’s home equity calculator
Note that it won’t say “20% of home equity is used” or somthing similar, but when you look at the values for different colleges that you select you can determine what the percentage is based on applying some simple math to the answers they give.
Also, you do have to use the little calculator that is embedded in the page (which looks like an advertisement and is easy to miss), and you do have to provide an email address to activate the calculator. In addition, you can’t delete or backspace out of the 0 that they prefill the calculator with – you just have to start typing your values and then it will calculate the home equity percentage for you. So, not the best design – but I did find that it accurately assessed the home equity portion of the various schools my son applied to last year.
Fair enough. I actually tested with fake numbers, just to learn the percentages . I also have a valid, but non-identifying, email address that doesn’t include my name in the address that I use for these types of situations.
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Appologies to the OP… I know we are way off course from your request.
@Mwfan1921 - No problem, I was worried about that too as real estate prices in our area went up significantly and so was worried about what years 2,3, and 4 would look like. Please note, this observation is concerning families with incomes topping out at about $250 to $300,000 with “normal” assets (no second homes, small businesses, family farms, etc…) From school websites, several financial aid sessions we zoomed in last year with colleges, financial aid packages for my own kids and where I work, and other strands on CC it looks like colleges that meet 100% of demonstrated need and use the CSS are shifting to income based for a percent. I will try to find an article that was in one of the Higher Ed news feeds I get at work, but here are a few things for you.
It seems like more colleges T20/T5O Colleges that meet 100% of need have added statements in recent years like Harvard and Yale have here - there seems to be some pressure to take away the mystery for the middle and upper middle class with financial packages varying widely.
Harvard - sounds like they go up in percentage of income from this level:
- Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0-10% of their income, and those with incomes above $150,000 will be asked to pay proportionately more than 10%, based on their individual circumstances.
- Families at all income levels who have significant assets are asked to pay more than those without assets.
Yale:
- Families earning between $75,000 and $200,000 (with typical assets) contribute a percentage of their yearly income towards their child’s Yale education, on a sliding scale that begins at 1% and moves toward 20%.
- There is no income cutoff for financial aid awards. Some families with over $200,000 in annual income receive need-based aid from Yale.
https://admissions.yale.edu/affordability-details
And from this site, not sure when it was updated:
Schools that Ignore Home Equity
- Bard College
- California Institute of Technology
- Cooper Union
- DePauw University
- George Washington University
- Hamilton College
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Princeton University
- University of Chicago
- University of Virginia
- Ursinus College
- Whitman College
Schools That Hit Home Equity Hard
- American University
- Babson College
- Bentley College
- Boston College
- Emory University
- Holy Cross College
- Lehigh University
- Loyola University Maryland
- Northeastern University
- Sarah Lawrence College
- Tulane University
Schools That Limit Home Equity
- Amherst College (1.2x)
- Barnard College (1.2x)
- Bucknell Univesity (2x)
- Cornell University (1.2x)
- Dartmouth College (1.2x)
- Emerson College (3x)
- Haverford College (1.2x)
- Kenyon College (4x)
- Lewis and Clark College (2x)
- Rice University (2x)
- Tufts University (2x)
- University of Rochester (3x)
- Vanderbilt University (2.4x)
- Wake Forest University (2x)
- Washington University, St. Louis (2.2x)
The College Solution page that you link to is what I had used primarily regarding home equity as a factor in institutional need-based aid, but the article is now seven years old. The embedded spreadsheet in the article used to be updated, but its data is now four years old. That spreadsheet from 2017 shows about 20 schools that at the time did not look at home equity. More recent data would be welcome.
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Agree, I will look to see what I can figure out with updated info.
OP here, thanks everyone for the responses! It’s been very informative.