<p>Re: CSS Profile</p>
<p>It is perfectly fine to pick up the phone and call the colleges/universities that your kid is interested in that require this and ask them about their specific formula. They will tell you. Any number of people have posted to this effect in the Financial Aid Forum.</p>
<p>We left NYC, where H and I both grew up, for Ohio largely because of the much lower cost of living. Fortunately we were able to work here, he in his field and I in a new one. While the income has always been lower, the lower cost of living compensates for that. Not everyone can easily make that transition though, we have family here who helped us at first.</p>
<p>One thing I have to add about NCPs - any child support or alimony they pay - which is generally based on their income - is counted in FAFSA.</p>
<p>I’m still curious about colleges lowering merit aid and replacing it with FA. Is that a common practice?</p>
<p>SteveMa - you skipped the part that our main employer of the last 20 years provided no match. We do have considerable savings, including a decent 401k - but at 42 years old, not it’s nowhere near 500K. We also have what I would consider a respectable amount saved in 529’s given our earning history, and a house payment under 1000 dollars a month(and decent equity) - so yes we can afford a state school thanks to our frugality. Honestly though, I know it’s also down to an awful lot of luck that we and our 3 children enjoy good health and have had no major job losses etc.</p>
<p>One thing I have to add about NCPs - any child support or alimony they pay - which is generally based on their income - is counted in FAFSA.</p>
<p>At PROFILE schools which takes NCP assets & income into acct, is it then counted twice?</p>
<p>Sue22- your example is precisely the reason why financial aid is not intended to make sweeping statements about “who deserves aid”. The system is not designed to auto-correct for every single lifestyle decision that every single family in America makes. Nor is it designed to compensate for problems with the tax code, or to make value judgements about wealthy people who are non-custodial parents who could afford to pay for college but don’t.</p>
<p>Y’all, if you’re looking for the financial aid system (especially at Private U’s) to somehow come up with a set of policies that are fair and just, easy to administer, legal, and don’t require having a private investigator come out to the house to make sure you don’t have a mink coat in the closet or a valuable oriental rug on the floor… you will be sorely disappointed with either the package your own kid gets, or somehow miffed at the package someone else’s kid gets. That’s not the way the system works.</p>
<p>Over time, and spread out over large populations (two parent, two paycheck families, two parent, one paycheck families, divorced, never married, affluent with a home, middle class but renting, see how many scenarios we can come up- there are hundreds) the system is designed to make it POSSIBLE (not easy, but possible) for large numbers of kids whose families cannot afford full freight, to pay for college. That’s it. It has to follow the law (all things being equal, two families with identical financial situations but of different races should get the same package… and the colleges have audit procedures in place to make sure that is so) but all things being equal, colleges are not required to make it up to you if your retirement portfolio took a hit in 2008 so you have less money in there than you once did; they are not required to compensate you for having less home equity than you had before real estate took a dive, etc. Moreover, they are not required to figure out how to equalize a one paycheck family to a two paycheck family (how do you calculate the non-cash financial benefit which the one paycheck family gets by having a parent home after school? )</p>
<p>The system isn’t perfect. But the alternative is worse (only full pay families can send their kids to college).</p>
<p>emeraldkity4 post #155 - right on! Furthermore, most school policies that I’ve read say that lost overtime income is not a reason to adjust. You can have a higher EFC than you otherwise would based on high overtime, but if things pull back the following year your EFC does not. So, if spouse is on mandatory 10s 6 days a week now, you’d almost better hope that they go to mandatory 12s and/or 7 days to keep up the following year.</p>
<p>“Some people are living in NYC because that’s just where their industry offers jobs.”</p>
<p>Sure, some. But you pick the industry, too. If I know that having a big house/acreage for my kids is a priority in my life, maybe I don’t go into publishing.</p>
<p>The current FA formulas have their flaws, but I’m not too troubled by them, in either direction (savers vs. spenders; Kansas vs. NYC). No system is going to be equitable down to the dollar for every family. I’m way, WAY more troubled by the overall growth in college costs and overall inadequacy of FA to make it affordable. I can’t worry about $8k here and there when I’m looking at a $100k problem.</p>
<p>Blossom-I agree. The system may not be perfect but it does allow deserving students who might not otherwise be able to afford college to attend.</p>
<p>All, in all, there are myriad options out there-large public universities, tiny LACs, and everything in between. What school one attends is not going to be a make or break choice as it is in some countries.</p>
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<p>I’d think not. Since child support and alimony come out of the income of the NCP I can’t imagine why it would be counted twice. It only makes sense to count it if you are only looking at the custodial parent’s income.</p>
<p>But I haven’t had to do Profile so I don’t know.</p>
<p>Yes, I meant $28k, not $18k way back … I really should proof my posts.</p>
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<p>kelsmon…what would a state school with oos costs of over $40k such as Uconn or UVM give in grants(if anything) to an oos student with an EFC of say $20K? How about a private that costs the same or more that doesn’t meet need? any way to ballpark this? </p>
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<p>The typical public school does not give extra aid to OOS students to cushion the blow of the increased tuition. For example, at the public where I worked, an OOS student with the same EFC as an in state student would receive the same grant aid as the in state student - even though COA was far higher for the OOS student. This is because … with the exception of UVA and UNC-Chapel Hill … public schools do not meet need for OOS students (if they even meet need for in state!).</p>
<p>So let’s take a school that is $40k OOS with a $20k EFC. I can just about assure you that this student will get Stafford loans. Period. I would ballpark the in state cost around $20k. If the in state student won’t get aid other than loans, neither will the OOS.</p>
<p>In this student’s situation, it is POSSIBLE a private school will be a better deal. I say possible, because only a handful of private school pledge to meet 100% of need. I would guess a private with good aid would be more generous to this student than a public, however.</p>
<p>All of this considers need-based aid only. An OOS student might get offered merit, which would change the picture. My S was accepted at UColorado with a $19k merit scholarship. That actually made the cost comparable to my in state flagship, where he would not have received a penny … merit is hard to come by at UM, and our EFC is too high for anything but loans.</p>
<p>kelsmom is it your experience that merit aid is not stacked with FA but replaced, as the title of this thread suggests?</p>
<p>Merit aid reduces need, so it definitely can replace need based aid. It usually does. However, it does not ALWAYS. The one thing to know is that Need based aid cannot exceed COA-EFC, and the total of all aid cannot exceed COA … IF there is ANY federal aid involved. Federal aid must be reduced accordingly. </p>
<p>Schools have varying policies on how they treat merit. My school reduced grants if school scholarships were awarded (so we did not package until the presidential grants were awarded - only the departmental scholarships would be an issue). We did this in order to maximize aid for our students. I firmly believe that this is fair. I know others may disagree, but if you could see what I saw … there are so many families struggling to earn a living.</p>
<p>By the way, we did not reduce grants if outside scholarships were earned. We may have had to reduce total aid to keep within the guidelines I referred to above regarding COA, EFC, need. But we didn’t reduce grants in this case. Other schools may, however.</p>
<p>Since child support and alimony come out of the income of the NCP I can’t imagine why it would be counted twice.</p>
<p>Because income is considered more strongly than outgo?</p>
<p>My kids and most of my friends’ kids are all long through this process. Some of my nieces and nephews are still in the process. Some interesting things I learned along the way:</p>
<p>If you are on FA, it probably makes no sense for your child to spend time applying for outside scholarships unless your package has a lot of loans and they will reduce that loan amount.</p>
<p>At some schools Merit Awards are linked to need and at some they aren’t. At some they really are all about merit, regardless of financial circumstances. At some colleges you will have to fill out a FAFSA and/or Profile annually for a Merit Award even if your EFC is significantly higher than COA. At some you won’t.</p>
<p>If your child is attractive enough to schools, you may be better off with Merit than Need based aid regardless of financial circumstances, because at some schools it is possible to stack merit awards to cover tuition, room & board, books & expenses, and then have the bursar’s office cut a check for what is left to pay for transportation, etc. </p>
<p>Some outside scholarships can only be used for tuition, fees & books and can not be used towards room and board. Others have no stipulation.</p>
<p>With peer schools, which claim to be need blind and meet full need, it is possible for the same student to receive FA packages that vary significantly. At need blind/meet full need schools there seem to be A, B, and C financial aid lists depending on desirability of student. Once students are accepted, some schools will suddenly find better FA packages for some students they really want who have received better offers from peer schools.</p>
<p>There is really no way to know in advance what your options will be until the acceptances come in. It is very difficult to plan but there is an amazing wealth of information on cc.</p>
<p>It is all rather unnerving.</p>
<p>alh’s post ^^^^ should be a sticky unto itself at the top of the Financial Aid forum.</p>
<p>Thank you kelsmom. S has some good college grants - academic and music scholarships, nothing to do with need, awarded with his acceptances (private colleges). But it’s not enough to bridge COA-EFC gap (which is about $20K). I wonder if schools are likely to try to fill that gap with need-based grants (and Pell and sub loans, both of which he qualifies for) or if they’ll say the merit is enough and gap him. </p>
<p>I’d assumed the former, if they want to try to meet EFC, but this thread makes me think the latter is possible too. </p>
<p>I guess I’ll find out in the next few weeks.</p>
<p>"Nope, CSS Profile does not require that information for the student. Here’s what it says:</p>
<p>‘Enter the untaxed social security benefits your parents received or expect to receive for all family members except you, the student, in 2011.’ "</p>
<p>My mistake. I was going from memory and I know I listed it somewhere. Maybe it was the sibling benefit or an additional FA form.</p>
<p>Can I safely assume that merit aid won’t be cancelled out by athletic aid?</p>
<p>I’m assuming that D will get the better of either FA or Merit Aid, but that they won’t add together. If she get’s merit aid, I’d expect it to replace loans in FA first - not grants. Example - let’s say our profile (calculator) leads a school to think we should pay 40K and the school costs 55K. The school may provide FA package for the 15K. If D gets Merit aid of 17K, then that would be all she would get… no additional FA. If she gets Merit of 10K then perhaps she could get a few K of need aid in the form of grants hopefully… I guess we’ll see.</p>
<p>^^in the above scenario if she gets 17K Merit (that is not need dependent) and in her sophomore year is an RA (thus getting room and board covered) the COA should be 55K minus 17K merit minus room and board costs. ?? right?</p>
<p>Some RA’s get room and board, some only room costs.</p>
<p>Just offering a suggestion as to how some families get the COA down.</p>
<p>I have seen packages where merit awards replace loans and packages where they replace grants; and seen situations where it was possible to successfully negotiate from one scenario to another after the award letter was received. Some leverage is necessary.</p>