Is EFC per child or per family?

Paying for College
161

Sorry, this makes no sense. If someone thinks their investment income is going to decline, they need to change their investment portfolio. And if they suspect a recession, they will pull a chunk of funds funds (especially with twins headed to college) and move it to a safer place. The OP said he and wife are salaried employees http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22437055#Comment_22437055 and he works for “a very well known international company” http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22436997#Comment_22436997 its more likely one is planning to stop working, if they really expect a significant change in income, whether earned or unearned. Most portfolios go up, not down. OP said their GROSS (not net) income would probably drop from around $350K to $250K

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22436799/#Comment_22436799 That, plus the value of the stocks and other investments is still going to make this family ubnlikely to qualify for any need based aid.
So, @Al73 , is one of you planning to retire? Do either of you have a pension?

And, do either of the tiwns have a hook? First generation college (doubtful) URM? What? Because the top schools get lots of very strong applicants, and admission rates for many, as you know, are in the single digits.

162

They both have excellent stats, but so do the 95% or so of students who get rejected from the Ivies.

You know…being a full pay family not even applying for need based aid might have been a benefit for your twins. Schools need to have full pay students. Then again…your financial aid applications will certainly show the schools that they don’t need to give you need based aid.

Did they apply to the top schools that also offer merit aid? Chicago, Vanderbilt, UVA for example?

At the end of the day, these top students will only be able to attend a top school if they either receive merit aid (at schools that offer it) or if you are willing to pay the costs (at schools that don’t offer merit aid).

One of my kids was a bioengineering major. Her class was very small. Every single one of her cohort went on to further studies (masters, PhD, MD, etc). No one got a job. Oh…and the school was located in the Silicon Valley. Many of these kids got fully funded graduate positions, or partially funded graduate schools. At the time 2010, it was highly recommended that bioengineering majors get an advanced degree. The college actually encouraged those who absolutely wanted jobs after bachelors to get mechanical engineering degrees…where their job placement was…100%.

163

@BelknapPoint My understanding is that retirement savings are counted. I ran a calculation with and without our own retirement and it was vastly different. I’m happy to be corrected as my kids haven’t gone to college yet. But my honest understanding was that some schools count both retirement and home equity and not all equations are equal. What is your understanding as you seem to know all about it? And where are you obtaining your results? Mine were done with the calculator on a popular page. One can run each school individually. Pretty cool. And big differences in how it’s counted for each school for those with lots of home equity and retirements. Honestly, would make some schools not that attractive for our family. Skip it and move on kind of thing.

164

Twin 1: applied to

EA - GT, Rutgers, UNC - Chapel hill, UMich

RD - Duke, MIT, Stanford, UCSD, UPenn, Rice, JHU, UT - Austin

Twin 2:

EA - Rutgers, UNC - Chapel hill, UMich, UVA

RD- NYU, University of Washington, UPenn, Cornell, CMU, possibly UT Austin

We do not do ED anywhere.

165

My understanding is, Retirement balances are taken into account somewhere, otherwise, why is it on Profile ?
Home equity is definitely counted, with very very few exceptions (HP and maybe Y )

There are families with low income but have 7 figure retirement funds and they are not high-need.

166

Big chunk of my compensation is stock options. The stock of my company increased several folds in recent years so the previous grants I got when the stock was cheaper (and therefore I was awarded more shares) was a lot more when the grant vested . I got fewer shares in recent grants and it is not reasonable to expect the stock will continue appreciating as rapidly if at all. Our income was abnormally high in recent few years and I project our income will drop at least by 1/3 in next few years.

167

@Happytimes2001 did you include you retirement account balances as part of your assets on the net price calculators? If so, you shouldn’t have.

@NCKris

There is nothing to substantiate that qualified retirement account balances are used in the financial aid equation. However, it is thought that some schools look at this to see if there is some huge disparity between retirement balances and income. For example…if a parent had $4 million dollars in retirement savings accounts but income is $50,000 a year…someone could reasonably ask how this is possible.

168

I guess you meant, did not ED anywhere ?
Actually ED would have made a tremendous difference for Duke, Cornell, UPenn, JHU.
RD acceptance is going be single-digit. (JHU BME is uber competitive)
UNC Chapel Hill and UT Austin are very competitive for OOS.

Wish your twins the best !

169

Yes, ED, it was a typo. We collectively decided we do not want to do ED because:

  1. We do not lock ourselves into one early application private school school
  2. We are price sensitive and not prepared to commit to any school with blank check.
170

" If someone thinks their investment income is going to decline, they need to change their investment portfolio."

I have seen many cases where employees get one-time stock options when they start. In most cases the company does badly and the options are not worth much. In a few cases the company does very well and the options are worth quite a bit. This is not in general a repeatable source of income, but can be a pleasant one-time source when it happens. In many cases there are MUCH smaller on-going options.

I don’t think that OP owes us a detailed explanation of their financial situation. However, I have seen many cases where the one-time windfall is not going to happen again.

If this is only going to happen once in a person’s life (or perhaps once in several lives), then people have to think carefully with regard to where the money is spent.

171

I will start by saying…these are decent lists, and I’m glad to see that the GT kid applied EA so she will be CONSIDERED for the Stamps award there.

Twin 1: applied to

UNC has some highly competitive merit aid…very highly competitive.

MIT, Stanford, UPenn give NO merit aid at all. Plan to be full pay there.

UCSD gives no need based aid to OOS students and very little merit aid to OOS students. CA mission is to provide money to the taxpayers of CA.

Duke, And UT Austin do give merit aid. Competitive.

JHU…mostly need based aid.

Rice has a new initiative for need based aid. Your income and assets are way too high. They do have some competitive merit aid.

Twin 2:

See comment about UNC above.

UVA is mostly need based aid with a couple of highly competitive merit awards. Michigan has some OOS merit awards, but those have been significantly reduced in number as the school moves toward mostly need based aid.

UPenn and Cornell don’t give any merit aid. At all. CMU is mostly need based aid with some merit.

NYU is notoriously stingy with all kinds of aid, and I think it wins the prize for being the most expensive college…or very close to it. They do give some merit aid to students who they really want to attract.

University of Washington gives very little aid to OOS students.

UT Austin…see comment above.

Your girls both have safety schools for admissions. And each has one sure thing in terms of affordability…Rutgers.

I think they have the potential for merit aid at some of these schools…but NOT need based aid…anywhere.

The net price calculators that include stats will give you a really decent estimate of your net costs. I would again urge you to run these. You don’t have to believe them…but run them anyway to see.

172

Ok, please name a school that takes qualified retirement savings into account when calculating need-based aid, and provide a link to a reputable web site where that can be verified.

A common consensus here is that the number is asked for on Profile to better understand a family’s overall financial situation, and unless things are really out of whack, there is no impact on need-based aid.

The most recent, best information I have seen names about a dozen schools that do not consider primary home equity when calculating institutional need-based aid. And Yale is not one of those schools.

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/

(Caution: most of the data here is two years old, and things do change. Contact a school’s financial aid office directly to get the most up-to-date information.)

173

UT Austin doesn’t give much merit aid. My son got in as a BME major with really good stats. He got all of $1,000/year in merit money.

When I asked, I was told there there were about 8 OOS tuition waivers for all students in the engineering school, all classes (so an average of 2 per year).

174

Some of these colleges are OOS publics for these twins. Many public universities feel an obligation to their taxpayers first. OOS students often see limited aid.

175

The GT Presidents scholarship (a stamps scholarship) is very competitive http://www.catalog.gatech.edu/academics/special-academic-programs/presidents-scholarship-program/

Hadn’t thought about grants or exercising options, but even if one does not get additional grants/options, those exercised will hopefully increase in value and that, combined with salary increases and possible bonuses, will also affect the OP’s income. So some unearned income may drop, but some may increase.

Yes there certainly are situations where hiring bonuses, retention bonuses, relocation funds and other onetime payouts may cause a onetime boost in taxable income, but it sounds like this family has done a good job of diversifying.

OP- did the twins go to public school or private school? Any hooks?

176

My opinion is based on never having seen or heard anything from a verifiable, reputable source saying that qualified retirement assets are a factor in determining need-based financial aid as part of a regular practice at any college.

Edited to add: I try not to be closed minded and am always open to new/more accurate information, so I’m ready to change my opinion if new facts are presented.

I would only trust NPCs that are actually found at or linked from a college’s own website.

177

What “popular page” were your net costs done on? I agree with @BelknapPoint . If it’s not the school NPC, I wouldn’t use it. Second hand.

178

We found the NPCs (school specific) to be very accurate. None of the schools took retirement savings into account.

179

@Al73

When you did the FAFSA, I’m assuming you included the amount you contributed to tax deferred retirement accounts in 2018. That amount is added back in as income. Was your $350,000 income including your contributions to these tax deferred accounts? For two of you…that could be easily $40,000.

180

My company does not have any bonus, most publicly traded company do not have cash bonus only stock options. This is nothing to exercise. when the grants vests you get the grant value in your paycheck.

My kids go to public school.

GT gives merit aid to OOS students in form of instate tuition. I believe there is also free ride scholarship but only 40 people get them so the chance to get one is slim