<p>OT-</p>
<p>Finest-kind, jym. She’s done very well. Considering her up-bringing and all. 
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<p>And rocket6, if you really waded through those humongous threads…well, I’m sorry. ;)</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is why the poor family kid is ‘entitled’ to go to the top school, paid for entirely by someone else. But if a family making $150,000 is not happy paying $50,000/yr for the same top school, they are told ‘there are plenty of good state schools’.</p>
<p>And curmudgeon, you left out family C, which I am guessing is the majority of ‘pay for’ families. Parents either went to a state school, paying their own way, or never went at all, and worked very hard all of their lives to get where they are. They have done without to save for college, and probably decided against a third, or even second kid, because they thought it was important to support the ones they had. Now they feel like complete suckers, when family D, who had all of the same opportunities C had but spent their money and wasted their time, is getting a free ride.</p>
<p>That would be a problem with the current FA system of allocating the resources, not with the concept of FA itself.</p>
<p>There are folks who want zero FA for anybody. That’s who I am lampooning.</p>
<p>^^Once again I really doubt that spending your money really affects finaid…When will you people get it, Finaid is mostly determined by INCOME not ASSETS…you can save nothing or a bunch and make the same amount and your package will NOT greatly differ…</p>
<p>merryecho-I’m a poor kid who’s constantly told “there’s always state school”…it happens to ALL of us…my family’s done without and STILL couldn’t save</p>
<p>also mudge, I DID wade through everything…it was …well…fun?</p>
<p>EDIT: cross post with mudge</p>
<p>BTW, in your example merryecho, what did the smart kid from family D do so wrong? Other than be born to ne’er-do-wells, that is?</p>
<p>That’s the key to going to a better college, kids. Pick better parents.</p>
<p>I think the common talking point of the “blowhards” is that a KID should be punished because of their PARENTS…cuz that makes sense</p>
<p>Assets are most certainly taken into account when deciding FinAid packages. Do you think independently wealthy people have a 0 EFC?</p>
<p>Assets(family ones) are assessed at 6%…that’s not too bad</p>
<p>Could you please further explain what that means? Do you mean that 6% of the family’s total value of assets is subtracted from a purely income based EFC? And in addition, remember that most assets are really expensive, like a house where 6% of the value might be $24,000.</p>
<p>If you have X dollars in assets, multiply X by .06 and the number you get (y) is added to your EFC</p>
<p>Houses are only worth how much of it you actually own(don’t count unpaid mortage)…like my house is only worth 18k</p>
<p>raiderade, they make it complicated. Run some of the calculators with several different asset levels but constant income levels and you’ll see.</p>
<p>Well then 6% is kind of huge. My gosh, my house adds 24K to my EFC and it is a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom home in middle-class suburbia. Not to mention the office my dad uses for his small business. That house is 300k which is another 18K. So based on both my house, and my father’s office, my EFC is 42K.</p>
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<p>Under the current system, the poor student has no other low-debt (less than $20,000) or debt-free options. The middle or upper income students do.</p>
<p>Two paid off buildings worth (do the math, $700K?) is pretty nice, but again…run the numbers. Home equity is treated differently than other assets.</p>
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<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>10char</p>
<p>raiderade-my parents would kill to have had the money to purchase such things(plus a vacation home)…</p>
<p>Well the 300k home for the business in unavoidable. You need a place to work and office space isn’t too cheap. I hope that the building doesn’t count like a normal home would, because it is really just an operating cost.</p>
<p>Well…when you only have a totaly of 20k in assets, the 300k seems impossible</p>
<p>I don’t have a vacation home, I have a very very cheap house that is rented out to generate income, I don’t even go there. The office is used to run a business and we have not even come close to paying that off. My house I suppose is comparatively pretty nice but it’s nothing lavish.</p>
<p>Look, I’m not trying to call myself poor, I’m not poor at all. I am middle-class. My family works really hard to live the way we do. I believe that a family with a 20K annual income deserves help in paying for college. But, I believe, by that logic, that I deserve at least a little bit of help too. I can’t afford $50,000 a year for college, I just can’t. It’s not because of foolish spending, it’s because my family cannot swing it.</p>
<p>Raiderade-I’m really not trying to attack you(sorry if it came off like that…:)) just trying to say that, by comparison to most, your assets are kinda staggering(even if you can’t enjoy them/avoid them)</p>