<p>My D is a HS junior and will start to apply colleges this Fall. JHU is her top choice and when we told her that she might need to choose another school due to the change of JHU financial aid policy, she felt very sad. She is a Valedictorian with SATI 2290 (will retake), SATII 800M2C, 800Chem (will take Physics later), AP 5Chem (will take more APs), and will be a NMS winner. We really hope she can attend JHU as she wishes.</p>
<p>However, we found JHU begins to add 5% home equity to EFC starts from this year, i.e.,
JHU EFC = Federal EFC + $1800 student contribution + 5% home equity </p>
<p>For parents who try to pay off house loan (in order to support kids for college) instead of saving money into a retirement account, this is a nightmare. We used CollegeBoard EFC Calculator and got a very close estimation between Federal Method and Institutional Method (used by 568 Group Institutions) even with a significant home equity, and we think they are reasonable and acceptable. However, the JHU EFC (by JHU Estimator) will be much higher than those estimated from both methods. JHU also does not allow outside scholarships to reduce student loans or work study except at the first (freshman) year that makes it useless to apply outside scholarships beyond first year.</p>
<p>JHU is a great school, but is it worth to spend 20% (4 years) more of your house value over an IVY or a top LAC? For parents near retirement age, it is a big challenge to repay the 20% home equity after the kid finishes college. I really hope JHU can reconsider and keep their old policy or join the 568 Group.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins has never been terrific about financial aid. In fact, they admit that they are not fully need blind in admissions, meaning they do consider financial need in making at least some of their decisions. </p>
<p>Your daughter may want to check out the University of Rochester or Rice as possible choices for schools similar to JHU.</p>
<p>"JHU is a great school, but is it worth to spend 20% (4 years) more of your house value over an IVY or a top LAC? For parents near retirement age, it is a big challenge to repay the 20% home equity after the kid finishes college. I really hope JHU can reconsider and keep their old policy or join the 568 Group."</p>
<p>What it's "worth" is what people are willing to spend. It's just another way to hike tuition to place it more in line with actual costs, as is happening at all the 568 schools. JHU is a little bit shrewder in targeting their increase on the net of what they will actually receive. Seems like a quite reasonable policy to me, especially as (perhaps increasingly) folks make choices to use their homes as the savings vehicle of choice (if you were setting up a new business, and went to the bank for a loan, would you expect them to exempt your home equity as collateral?)</p>
<p>Why would they want to reconsider when for every applicant that steps aside, they have three more in line?</p>
<p>I agree that this will be an economic blow for some families. I have to question JHU's reasoning for this decision. Is it because of the Trustees desire to improve their endowment funds? I suspect that in the case of JHU, a sizeable portion of their endowments are designated for their medical and allied schools.</p>
<p>We are a very frugal family also and had paid off our mortgage when DS was in middle school. This fact and our sizeable non-retirement investment portfolio resulted in and astronomically high EFC. While we could rail against the formula which seems to favor more free spending families who live across the tracks in their fully mortgaged McMansions and drive their $38,000 Lexuses, thats their choice which is fine with me.</p>
<p>I sympathize with OP's student. The JHU decision places addition financial burden on them. Hopefully it will not be an insurmountable one or their student will begin setting her sights on other wonderful colleges that will accept her with open arms. Life is full of disappointments. The measure of a person is how one deals with them.</p>
<p>Carolyn and originaloog,
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We are definitely going to apply some great schools other than JHU including some free ride state schools.</p>
<p>Mini,
I am comparing other similar schools with JHU. Please see the following formula to see if it is reasonable to you,</p>
<p>FM EFC (without consider Home Equity) = IM EFC (with Home Equity);
JHU old EFC = FM EFC (without consider Home Equity);
568 Group EFC = IM EFC (with Home Equity);
JHU new EFC = FM EFC + 5% Home Equity = IM EFC (with Home Equity) + 5% more Home Equity = 568 Group EFC + 5% more Home Equity </p>
<p>I dont have a business and I am driving an 89 Mazda ($320) to work and a 95 Nissan Van ($3500) for family transportation. We are very frugal like originaloog.
The only mistake we made is to pay off mortgage rather than put it in a retirement account.</p>
<p>I can tell you that my d. got radically different offers from various members of the 568 group, suggesting that this is not nearly as cut and dried as it seems. (I'm in an 88 Nissan, and my wife in a '95 Escort, my house is maybe worth $150k). </p>
<p>I don't think you made a "mistake" by paying off the mortgage; most schools are not counting home equity to the degree they are accounting for other forms of savings. </p>
<p>The theory behind considering home equity in a time when higher income folks are increasingly using larger houses as a form of savings (and getting massive tax breaks as they do so) is simple: college costs are supposed to reflect either past savings (in the form of savings, home, etc.) or future payout (in the form of loans, which can take the form of remortgages over a longer time period, without necessarily increasing mortgage payments.) Perhaps an anomaly - I had a friend in California - a single mom - who remortgaged the house four times to pay for four private college tuitions, then when all the kids were out, sold the house, and bought another, smaller one, and the college educations were free.</p>
<p>Hopkins also increases 'self-help' component each year. You might consider speaking with an expert in college finaid -- perhaps taking out a home equity line and purchasing retirement annuities might change the formula.</p>
<p>Mini,
My house is worth about $190K now and we might need to remortgage the house to pay the cost. Today I just feel very bad since JHU is my D's top choice. Thanks!!</p>
<p>So, if I understand, they've added a potential $9,500 to your bill. I would note that the expected student contribution is much lower than it is at my d's school, for what it's worth. </p>
<p>If you've paid off the mortgage, you would need a remortgage of $40k. At today's interest rate, that is $336 a month over 15 years, or $248 over 30 years. It may seem like a lot (and of course I don't know your situation), but chances are you are likely to sell it well before the mortgage is paid off, and the housing inflation rate is greater than the mortgage rate virtually everywhere, so you'd come out ahead. And you'd be getting a significant tax deduction as well. (In addition, the mortgage would reduce the home equity, right?) Just not as much ahead as you'd prefer.</p>
<p>I always encouraged my kids NOT to have a top choice, but have a range of choices, and then see which way the admissions/financial aid gods shone down upon us. We were lucky in that they were very generous, and, if you and your d. choose wisely, I fully expect you'll find the same.</p>
<p>I hadn't even visited schools or taken the SAT by this point in my junior year. There is plenty of time left. I think she should go and keep looking at a great variety of schools. Most kids will change their minds between winter of junior year and the spring of senior year. Kids change their foci and priorities every couple months, from what I've seen. Most of my friends have changed first choice schools or even the type of school they were searching for at least twice. For now, take a deep breath and encourage your daughter to find reaches, matches, and safety schools that she loves, as well as financial safety schools. There are tons of schools out there, any number of which she could be happy and successful at.</p>
<p>You sound so confident that she will get into JHU, and I just want you to help her to keep looking at and considering different places. I imagine (and hope) that she will fall in love with a lot of schools before she needs to apply. She sounds like a great JHU applicant, but I know a boy who had his heart set on it and ended up getting rejected, despite high stats and very strong legacy status--he's at Harvard now.</p>
<p>You have a lot of time, so just relax and make sure your daughter keeps her eyes open. </p>
<p>I'm a student, and I'm not applying for financial aid, so I apologize that I cannot help on your main concern! By the way, I see absolutely no reason for her to take the SATs again, and I strongly discourage doing so. A 2290 is good enough for absolutely any school in the country.</p>
<p>o dear...my parents are not going to be happy about this.
I'm just curious, so i can show my dad this, where was the information posted about JHU changing the FA policy and raising tuition cost?
Also, I applied to JHU ed and was accepted but not in the BME program, so it is not a binding contract anymore. My dad made me apply to several other schools (cornell, northwestern, u rochester, and wustl) to compare finacial aid. would JHU reconsider if another school of the same or better caliber gave me better aid?</p>
<p>Reasonabledad, The 568 President's Group is a group of schools that have voluntarily agreed to being need-blind in admissions. As Mini notes, however, while the Group also has agreed to some mutual "consensus" standards for how financial need is determined, they are still relatively free to set how aid packages are tailored at each individual school and there can be great variety in the packages offered by each member school.</p>
<p>corranged,
I said JHU is her top choice but never said she will get in. We know the top 20 schools and top LACs are most selective and nobody can sure that she/he will get in one of these schools. That is why we encourage her to retake SATI and more SATII subjects and APs to increase her chance for schools like JHU, we are also going to apply some state schools for safety.<br>
Thank you for your thoughts, we are going to take her to visit some other schools this summer and she might fall in love with other schools like you said. Have a nice weekend!</p>
<p>Nanaijuh,
The difference between the old and the new JHU calculators is the 5% home equity. If you dont have significant equity, there might not be a big deal. You can find the calculators and the 7.2% tuition increase in JHU web site.</p>
<p>"Reasonabledad, The 568 President's Group is a group of schools that have voluntarily agreed to being need-blind in admissions."</p>
<p>Actually, more than that. The 568 Group contains a smaller group of colleges that, while claiming to be need-blind, had actually been competing each other in attempting to lure "meritorious" candidates they wanted by increasing financial aid offers, and then colluded, in violation of federal anti-trust statutes, so as to not engage in 'open' bidding wars against each other. They still collude (under a seemingly common methodology) - but still compete with each other under the guise of "finding more need" come April for candidates whom they really want. Some of the colleges have now abandoned the EFC formula for certain classes of candidates (such as H. providing the same financial aid offer to all acceptees with family incomes under $40k, regardless of EFC); others have gotten around "merit aid" by abandoning being need-blind in accepting Questbridge applicants, and the games go on.</p>
<p>If you think of it as a cartel, where nominally competing interests are put aside in favor a collective good in restraint of trade, you wouldn't be far off.</p>
<p>fftd-
I like bluebayou's suggestion about a lit or history SAT II ... but beyond that, your D may have bigger fish to fry than SAT I retakes and multiple II's. At some point, the numbers of the application are not as important as the rest of the application - essays, short responses, supplemental materials. If there is any way that your D can be done with all the standardized testing by the end of Junior year, it will be greatly to her advantage in the fall of senior year. The applications take an enormous amount of time and energy if they are to be done properly - almost like have another class. Collegeboard retakes on top of it ... can be just exhausting. </p>