<p>My house has appreciated dramatically since I purchased it and is likely to appreciate more by the time my children hit college. I am concerned that this paper equity will drive up my (Institutional) EFC and make financial aid unobtainable.</p>
<p>I read in another thread that many colleges cap their assesment of home equity by a multiplier of the parents' income. Is this generally true? If so, how does it work?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>If you are using FAFSA schools, no problem, your home does not count. If you are using Profile, you could have issues...some schools have caps on % of equity based on income and we did, in fact, see a big difference between schools. For us, with high home equity due to appreciation, but lower income the past few years, we saw they wanted about $20k more per year at CSS only schools, so my kids are at FAFSA schools. We saw several schools which either had specific programs or general guidelines which allowed them to limit the amount of home equity to no more than a % of income, in those cases the package was better (for us)</p>
<p>So, yes, you do have something about which to be concerned, but try the finaid.org IM vs FM and see how your situation comes out</p>