<p>Yes, your quote is from JHU Web Site, but it is not correct. They changed the word "students" to "freshmen" long times ago as</p>
<p>Need-based scholarships, Hopkins Grant and Hopkins-funded, merit-based scholarships will not be reduced for freshment receiving outside/private scholarships.</p>
<p>in JHU "Student Financial Assistance 2004-2005" manual. You can confirm this change with JHU Financial Office at
<a href="mailto:fin_aid@jhu.edu">fin_aid@jhu.edu</a></p>
<p>Sorry, "freshment" should be "freshmen"</p>
<p>Hi Xiggi, </p>
<p>The three schools came up with three different EFCs. Brown ALSO required $2000 more in student loans, though I should note that they do not require work study for freshmen, giving that portion of aid as a grant.</p>
<p>I am one of the Admissions counselors at Johns Hopkins and typically post of the JHU forum to assist students with getting a better understanding of Johns Hopkins. I was informed of this thread by a couple of people, and contacted our financial aid office for an official response. Here is the message I received from the Director of Student Financial Services, Ellen Frishberg...</p>
<p>"In recent years, JHU has used a variation of the Federal Methodology, which does not count home equity, but also does not have generous deductions found through the analysis possible with the CSS Profile data. This year, with the installation of a new computer system, JHU is using the CSS Profile form. This form collected data JHU has never used or been able to use in our analysis -- medical expenses, secondary school tuition, adjusted cost for state taxes, as well as other data. This allowed us to give better estimated packages to some families who needed them, while others felt their aid eligibility changed from what would have been. We updated our online calculator to reflect some of these changes, but not soon enough, it appears.</p>
<p>Along with the good new data, came a requirement to use home equity in the analysis. There was no way around it (we asked) and home equity has always been used by almost all CSS Profile and 568 schools. What we were able to do was to cap the amount of home equity we would count at three (3) times a family's income -- so that if you have an income of $70K, and $300K in equity, only the first $210K in equity will count -- and that amount is run through a formula that nets it out at around 5%. What this means is that whatever your parent contribution from income comes out to be, about $10,500 (5% of $210K) would be added to it, based on the home asset. We did think it was reasonable to ask a family with an income of $70K to borrow $10K from home equity to help their child afford a quality education.</p>
<p>We are currently evaluating this approach -- we are not convinced that using home equity to add to family ability to pay for college is the best course of action in all situations, and are willing to work with families who experience a hardship because of this change.</p>
<p>Remember though, families tend to save in two ways -- through their home and through their retirement. If we capture neither, we cannot really say that we are awarding aid on the basis of relative need - as we don't have accurate measurements of that need. That is a basic flaw in the system.</p>
<p>You will note many differences across our peer institutions in terms of allowances for unusual expenses, school-related borrowing, the expectations for summer savings, levels of student and parent borrowing and work, and non-custodial parent contributions. Some selective private schools have non-need based aid, but most do not. Many of these decisions are a function of available resources, not from a lack of compassion.</p>
<p>There is no easy way for families to predict their ability to pay for one school or another until their child is admitted and offered an aid package. We wish it were not so, hence the 568 Presidents attempt at an agreed upon method. But method is only a part of the equation. The aid package is the other. College and university philosophy, endowments, demands on budgets, and recruitment needs also drive this process - not just the formula."</p>