I just applied for FAFSA and my EFC is ~1400 and ~4000 Pell Grant and ~ 4000 Stafford Loan
BUT I used one of my prospective colleges’ net price calculators and I have to pay ~35,000 a year vs. original 65,000 price.
The main difference lies in filling out my family’s assets. for FAFSA, I was offered an option not to fill assets, BUT the college I want to attend requires CSS and thus requires entering assets.
My family income was 30,654 last year and our cash/savings assets are pretty low BUT the main source of the problem is the price of our house valued at more than 2,500,000.
Does anyone know of a way to solve this problem of high assets but really low income?
Apply to colleges that cap equity.
Those include, for instance, Dickinson, Amherst, Franlin&Marshall, HarveyMydd, Uva, Bucknell, Skidmore, Whitman, Lewis and Clark, Muhlenberg, Rice, Wellesley, Pizter, Brandeis, Scripts, Yale.
You want to stay away from U Michigan, Northeastern, Wpi, Lafayette, Washington and Lee, Emory, Ithaca, Gettysburg, American, Bentley, Rhodes, Williams, Union, Boston College.
It means your favorite school won’t work (you can apply but desinvest your feelings right now and find others that are similar).
It means you’ll need to run NPC 's on a lot of colleges and cross out the ones that are too high.
If I may ask: How do you end up with a house valued so high and such a low income? It’s very very unusual. Families with your income would be expected to rent or have a very small house. Did your parents divorce (in that case both parents ’ income must be entered, as well as any person they may be married to) or is one a dislocated worker?
With low income - high assets avoid schools that require the CSS profile. Here is a link to schools which want one.
https://profileonline.collegeboard.org/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv
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@MYOS1634 The house has been in the family for a long time and in the past two decades, the real estate skyrocketed because of the school district. Thanks for the advice though. I am planning on applying ED Emory, so I was wondering if I could still apply ED and check our their packages first and perhaps opt-out if they do not meet my family’s need. or is that unethical?
@1andonly thanks for the list! I checked the list but unfortunately every school I am interested in are on the list. BUT I do not see most of the UC schools on the list, so does that mean I should focus more on UC schools?
Yes, UCs will not consider equity. Privates tend to want CSS more than publics.
However, if you are out of state, they give no aid.
is there anyway in which I could contact schools like Emory/Boston College and explain my situation to the aid office or does everything stop at CSS?
No. They don’t care - they consider you have equity and should take HELOC on it to pay for college. Emory will NOT meet need for you. I wouldn’t waste an ED application applying there, unless you qualify for Emory Scholars and can have a shot at merit. BC is usually the worst, don’t bother applying. They have hundreds of kids who apply with high equity and their formula is what it is, they won’t change it for you.
Do you live in California?
In another thread you said you’re a permanent resident. That’s good because you’ll qualify for federal aid. But having such an expensive asset may count against you at some schools. The taxes on a $2.5 million home must be enormous, but I don’t think colleges will take into account that your parents are paying them out of a $30k/year income. Do your parents own their own business? If so, the NPCs won’t be accurate.
@MYOS1634 Yeah but I really want to go out of state. the weather is nice, but the UC schools are HUGE and I want to learn and be independent from my helicopter parents/experience life.
if I were to apply to equity capped schools like Rice, do you know how significant the difference in tuition will be? and is it worth it to spend the extra money?
thanks for your responses by the way, really helpful!
@austinmshauri I am not too sure on this but my family pays very little taxes on our house because it was really cheap when we bought it something.
both of my parents own the same consulting business. can you explain how that makes NPCs inaccurate? I am really new at these things.
When people own businesses they can write off lots of expenses on their taxes. That reduces the amount of the gross income they pay taxes on, but colleges will add many of those back in which increases the gross they use to calculate your family contribution. What’s your parents’ total income before any deductions are taken? That’s the amount that matters.
Are you in CA? Property tax is usually based on the value if the home, not a 20-year-old purchase price.
@austinmshauri I will need to ask my parents about the deductions. When i applied for FAFSA, I caught a glimpse of something like 4 deductions. I am not totally sure on what that means, but I will find out.
I do live in CA and the property tax here is around 1% of sales price and adjusted with 2% of the original tax; but i am not entirely sure.
rest in peace college dreams haha. really wished CSS was not a thing.
just curious, does anyone know how much an average family pays for 4 years of highly ranked schools without any other form of aid? i would like to use this as a baseline and refine my options.
Families of 4 that don’t receive aid pay full price, so ~65K X 4.
You have to run the NPC on EACH college to know how much it’d cost in your situation. ONLY apply to colleges that are affordable.
In your situation, it’d make a lot of difference whether equity is capped or not - literally tens of thousands of dollars.
There are private universities in CA, too.
What are your stats?
You may be able to get merit aid at some universities.
Some Profile schools completely ignore home equity, and as you’ve been told, some others cap it at various multiples of income. This link may be helpful:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/
Is the house completely paid for? No mortgage at all?
What is your consulting parents’ total gross income? As noted above, there are deductions allowed by the IRS that are not allowed for financial aid purposes for the self employed. Some deductions could very likely be added back in as income.
Really, if finances are a significant consideration, do NOT apply early decision. You well get ONE acceptance and ONE financial aid package…and you will be given a very short window of time to accept or decline the offer. The problem is…this could be the best aid offer you will receive with the lowest nest cost…or it could be the worst. You will have no way of knowing.
I hope you understand that Emory is a big school. The intro classes there…gen ed require,wants everyone needs to take…won’t be teeny classes either.
And even at the biggest UC, the upper class classes in your major will be a smaller size.
If your income is REALLY $30,000 or so…AGI…you would qualify for the Calgrant. Your costs to attend any UC would be quite. But less than Emory…which does consider home equity in their equation.
If you use that list of schools that don’t count home equity - Call financial aid and confirm this is the current policy. Things change and that article is old.
I agree that in-state publics are your best shot at getting an affordable financial aid package. California is a big state, you should be able to find someplace far enough to live away from home and go to school.
There are so many good programs among the UCs, CSUs, etc. Apply to multiple campuses. This is important to ensure that you have multiple affordable choices come spring.
Do you have a particular major in mind?
@AroundHere thanks for the heads-up. I am interested in biology, but i heard it is a really competitive field when applying, so i might applying for economics which is my second choice. I was applying to all the UCs as backups, but I now I might move them up my interest list because of the aid.
@thumper1 the house is completely paid for. my parents said our AGI is around 35,000 and we don’t have many deductions. I was wondering if I could opt-out of the Early decision agreement if the financial aid package is not enough? i heard of others doing that before, but i am not sure if it is ethical.
@MYOS1634 my stats are pretty weird too. my overall gpa is 3.69, but I am above 3.9 for both freshman and junior year. the problem is my sophomore year when i died because of reasons i wish not to talk about (around 3.3 or something) … I am hoping the “all around” colleges notice this haha. my sat is 2120 which converts to ~1480. for other tests, i have 5 800 biology, 5 800 chemistry, 5 calc ab, 800 math 2, 5 800 chinese. then there is the 3 apeng and 3 apcs. my extracurriculars are above average (club officers, a paid editing job, lots of volunteering) not a lot of major awards either (just the regular school awards, ap scholar thing, and some international awards)
I am not too sure if i could get merit awards at the top colleges I want to attend, but where do you see i could get a lot of merit awards?