Impact of increased income and assets on second year of financial aid?

Hi, does anyone have experience with the impact of having more income and, especially, more assets in our son’s second year of financial aid application? We inherited a home and some cash, plus had an about 15% income increase and our our EFC went from about 10,000 to 50,000, from last year to this year. Thanks for any thoughts.

Well, the amount of need-based financial aid that your son receives will probably decrease. But I’m sure you already knew that. I don’t think anyone can get any more specific without knowing more details of your situation.

Inherited a home how? A house worth 200K if you were to sell it tomorrow but with a 180K mortgage on it? Have you actually taken title to the home or has someone died and you’ve been informed that they’ve left the house to you but right now it is in the estate and not actually yours? Probate concluded? assets distributed?

Your financial aid will likely go down; but make sure you are accurately describing on your aid forms the ownership of these assets. Someone I know put down half ownership of a house which had been left to her, but the house was mortgaged to the hilt and the executor needed to sell the house to pay back taxes. I.e. by the time it cleared, she was left with a very, very small amount of her “house”.

thank you. We inherited the home when my mother in law passed away, we have taken title and there’s no mortgage on it.

What’s it worth?

Well, if your EFC went up $40k, I’d say the difference in need based aid will adjust by at least that much. Were you getting everything except the $10k EFC before?

Also…is this inherited home your primary residence or is it a second piece of real estate? As a second piece of real estate, it will add 5.6% of its worth to your EFC. So if it’s worth $400,000, that alone would add over $20,000 to your EFC.

Are there additional assets to this home?

Thanks. We were getting $22,000 in need based aid. Looks like that will be gone. Thanks for your input!