<p>We have very sophisticated tools to track money coming and going out of acct now. To transfer 200k out of country will definitely attract some attention. It is to prevent AML (anti money laundry). For an event like that, any bank’s AML system would trigger an alert to its compliance department, and compliance would most likely notify the regulators if it is not a normal transaction for a customer.</p>
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You’re right, but what am I supposed to do?</p>
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I don’t know why I can’t say my family has three children. Cool your beans, bro.</p>
<p>sic_infit, shut up. I know him in real life, just ignore him.</p>
<p>What can you do?</p>
<p>First, you are not the only one with parents who do not want to pay the costs of the Ivies and equivalent even though it seems they can afford to.</p>
<p>So…what can YOU do. Adjust your college expectations. Set your sights on the goal of getting a bachelors degree, not on attending a very expensive school that your family will not fund.</p>
<p>Read the thread by Amber2010. She tells what she did to pay for college herself.</p>
<p>Work. Go to community college and commute from home…and continue to work part time. Go to an instate public university, and commute if possible to save more money. OR finish a two year degree at the community college and get a job…work and save money to finish your bachelors degree. You won’t be the first (or the last) to go this route.</p>
<p>Just for the record…the INTEREST on the $400,000 your family currently has will more than fund Amber’s college route suggestion.</p>
<p>AND…talk to your parents about your post high school plans. Ask them how much money they ARE willing to pay annually for your education…then go from there.</p>
<p>And as I said earlier…if you think you have the stats to get accepted to an Ivy or equivalent school, you could be in the running for merit aid at other schools. Read the the thread by momfromtexas who found full rides or near for both of her kids. </p>
<p>But remember…being honest about what you are doing financially has to trump any other “ideas” you have for divesting your family of funds they have. Remember, if you are verified for financial aid applications, you will likely be required to send in family tax returns for AT LEAST one year…we had to do two.</p>
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<p>For the record…LOTS of parents choose to fully fund their retirement accounts instead of saving for college. In fact, a financial planner told us to do just this and we did. Bottom line, if our retirement income is sufficient, we can repay loans if we need them. </p>
<p>What difference does it make what religion this family is or what country they are dealing with? Parents of many religions and nationalities make the decision to provide funds to their families. This comment is totally irrelevant.</p>
<p>^Ok thanks, how do I find the momfromtexas thread though?</p>
<p>I’m not particularly savvy with the search functions…but use them. Perhaps someone else will post a link here (hopefully so). Those threads are a few years old but the ideas are still good ones.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065310426-post18.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065310426-post18.html</a></p>
<p>You might try the search function.</p>
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<p>You might also wish to lower the temperature a bit on your own legumes. You have asked a question, and have been provided with insights and perspectives from some of the most knowledgeable posters on this forum regarding the intricacies of financial aid.</p>
<p>“You’re right, but what am I supposed to do?”</p>
<p>You’re supposed to be honest. You still can go to college just as is the case for students whose parents really can’t afford their college educations. However, you’ve got an advantage that most such students don’t have: You’ve got the stats to be applying to Ivies, which means you’ve got the stats to qualify for full ride merit aid.</p>
<p>Take the time to research what colleges offer excellent merit aid – and the apply to those colleges. There’s a good chance that your state public universities offer excellent merit aid to top in-state applicants, so check out those colleges.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.guaranteed-”>http://www.guaranteed-</a> (the second word is “scholarships”)</p>
<p>If you’ll be a National Merit scholar there are plenty of colleges that offer full rides to such students.</p>
<p>Also, perhaps if your parents know you won’t go along with their hiding money scheme they’ll still give you some money for college. Your taking a stand against their unethical actions may cause them to become ashamed of what they’re planning to do.</p>
<p>Actually, if you lay out your plans to look for more affordable colleges (that might NOT be on their radar screen), they will have to realistically consider the options along with you.</p>
<p>There are a lot of things you can do to reduce your EFC. Your parents can quit their jobs the year before you go to college so their income is low. That would have a big impact on your EFC. They can also give away their assets, which is what you are asking about. </p>
<p>When you post here with these questions, it would not be right for any of the parents to say it is ok to do something that may well have implications. If your family is one that is picked for verification, or if the school where you are applying wants verification forms, large movements of money like that are sure to be noticed. Whether your explanation will hold for the college financial aid officers is a whole other thing and depends entirely on their judgment which is final in these cases. </p>
<p>People do scurry to rid themselves of assets before the financial aid process. Sometimes the explanation does not fly if the college fin aid officer feels that it smacks of trying to get out of paying for college. Be aware that this happens enough times that those schools that do give generous aid tend to be more scrupulous in their investigations. Be prepared to explain any money transfers the year before college and during college if you are expecting financial aid. </p>
<p>What is your family income range? Though $400K sound like a lot, depending on your parents’ ages and number of dependents, that is about $20K off of your EFC. The income is where you will be hardest hit for institutional EFC.</p>
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What is the problem here?? He accused me of being dishonest because I didn’t identify myself clearly. All I said in response was that saying “we have three children” doesn’t mean I’m a parent. It has nothing to do at all with being unappreciative about the insights provided to me on this thread.</p>
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Is it spoiled to think that I deserve to be able to go to the colleges on my list? I don’t think so, but there’s a good chance someone will tell me I am. My parents could afford it. And now, my parents have told me they will just move the money after I’m in college, and I can forget about anywhere without a merit scholarship. No more unethical actions are being planned, so stop making me feel ashamed by calling it a scheme!</p>
<p>Our income is 125k.</p>
<p>With an income of $125,000 a year and the assets you describe, you would not likely receive need based aid anywhere unless at least one other sibling was in college at the same time as you.</p>
<p>The most generous schools (HYS) give institutional need based aid to families with incomes up to $150,000 a year. BUT this assumes “typical assets”…almost 1/2 a million dollars in the bank is not “typical”. Also these schools use the CSS Profile (Princeton has its own form which asks the same questions basically as the Profile). The Profile delves much more deeply into your finances than the FAFSA does.</p>
<p>Remember ALL the FAFSA does is compute you eligibility for federally funded need based aid. With a family income of $125,000, you would not be eligible for any federal funding except an unsubsidized Stafford loan.</p>
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<p>Everyone has dreams and they are hard to give up sometimes. Your parents are telling you they will not fund the costs of attending the schools on your list. That being the case, either you have to change their minds or move on. There is no “college costs fairy” out there. Someone has to pay your college costs.</p>
<p>As pointed out, if you have the stats to get accepted to those Ivies and MIT, you likely have the stats to get some significant merit aid at some other colleges. Go for it…there are some terrific schools that give such merit aid and “fly under the radar screen” in terms of name recognition.</p>
<p>I guess that’s the rub, isn’t it? Even if you never had the $400k, your EFC would still be too high to get any free financial aid. And even if your family was destitute and your EFC was zero, you still wouldn’t receive enough aid to meet the costs of virtually any school that only uses the FAFSA. I think people sometimes over-exaggerated the availability of free need-based aid for people with low EFCs, and I think that’s a mistake. Apart from a tiny Pell grant, most need-based aid involves taking out loans that have to be repaid, and some schools even have the chutzpah to offer private loans as “financial aid”. </p>
<p>If you have $200,000, or even $100,000, you can probably pay off the costs of attending most schools for at least the first two or three years. You could potentially graduate with minimum loans (if any) from some of the finest schools in the country. I can’t imagine why anyone would consider rejecting that in favor of debt. I mean, that’s like saying, “I could buy this new car with cash, but I’d rather borrow the money from the Mafia instead.”</p>
<p>Ripemango, have you tried some of the EFC calculators on college websites? I believe Princeton has one that might give you an idea of what you could expect from HYPS (who have similar FA policies, I think). One thing to note is that the number of siblings attending college at the same time has a large influence. So your EFC with an annual income of $125K, cash assets of $400K and $400K equity in your family home might be, say, $60K (I’m just guessing - run the estimator if you want the real number) but once you have a sibling in college, your parents expected contribution for you would likely be halved. At that point, you would be getting about $23K in grants, which would make the cost of those years of your college career similar to the tuition+room+board that you might be paying at a state school, or at a private school that includes loans in it’s FA packages.</p>
<p>Anyways, there isn’t a clear-cut absolute answer. Financial aid at HYPS, even with $400K residential equity, $400K assets and $125K income, might make one of those schools affordable for you if/when you have siblings in college.</p>
<p>Moving the money back to a foreign country: - there are many possibilities here. Moving it to an account owned by your parents would mean that they are required to report it both on IRS forms and on CSS/Profile, every year as long as they own it. Giving it to your grandparents - could this be structured as repayment of a loan? If your grandparents’ country is Israel, there are definitely tax advisors and accountants who deal with financial issues of US-based immigrants, yordim and hozrim who would be able to tell you what is legal. A talk with one of them is worth a lot more than us shooting the breeze here on CC.</p>
<p>If your parents don’t feel able to commit $53K/year for one child’s education…how set are they in this opinion? How much do they think they can afford? What sort of school do they think they want you to attend? They may have unrealistic ideas of what’s available. On the other hand, there certainly are schools where kids with superior stats and applications can get merit awards. I assume by now you’ve started researching some of those. Plenty of smart middle-class kids in this country compromise on the school they attend because of merit awards. I know a kid at Duke who turned down Princeton, a kid at Clark who turned down Brandeis, a kid at Muhlenberg who turned down Brandeis, a kid at U of Rochester who turned down Cornell, a number of kids at McGill who turned down more prestigious and more expensive schools, kids at UM-CP, UConn, Binghampton and Geneseo who had more prestigious but more costly options that they turned down. Then there are good-but-not-famously-fantastic LACs that sometimes award great merit scholarships,…anyways, lots of places to investigate and to apply to.</p>
<p>Remember that these VERY generous need based schools accept about 10% of applicants. That means that 90% do not get accepted. There are a ton of very well qualified applicants to these schools who do not get accepted. These schools really aren’t a slam dunk for anyone.</p>
<p>Their generous need based aid does you no good unless you hit the lottery and are accepted.</p>
<p>So…cast a wider net if finances are going to be an issue.</p>
<p>The donor pays the gift taxes so your parents would have to pay gift taxes on 200,000 which would probably not be trivial and which would likely be more than a year at your in-state flagship.</p>
<p>I have heard of parents shifting money as you describe and getting lots of need-based aid. Perhaps they didn’t report the gifts or perhaps the money was held in foreign accounts to begin with so there wouldn’t be any US transfer issues involved. It feels highly unfair to those that play by the rules.</p>
<p>Here are the momfromtexas threads:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>Even if the specific scholarships discussed no longer exist, the search strategies described are still very effective.</p>
<p>Another thread worth reading is:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>Lots of parents who have the kind of money that you are talking about here still insist that their children pursue scholarships, take out student loans, and work while they are in college. This is often referred to as requiring that the student “has some skin in the game”. In other words, getting realistic about the cost of college, and taking partial responsibility for paying for it, is considered to be part of the student’s transition into full adulthood.</p>
<p>Here at CC, parents often remind each other that we need to “love the kid on the couch”. Perhaps you can try “loving the parents across the table”. These are the ones that you have. You may not always agree with them, or like their behaviors, but they still are your parents. Try to find a way to keep loving them through whatever it is that appears to you to be complete craziness.</p>
<p>Wishing you, and all your family, all the best.</p>
<p>ripemango -</p>
<p>Your parents can remove a certain amount of this money from the view of FAFSA, by putting it into retirement accounts. Each of them can establish an IRA, and if their workplaces offer 401(k) or 403(b) plans they can pay into those as well. If they are self-employed options include KEOUGH, SIMPLE, and SEP IRAs.</p>
<p>For example, a person who is 50 years old can put USD 6000 into a personal IRA, and USD 22,000 into a 401(k) or 403(b). A person who is less than 50, can deposit USD 5000 into the IRA and USD 16,500 into the 401(k) or 403(b). If both of your parents are working, and each is at least 50 years old, they can conceivably move a total of USD 56,000 from that huge stash of cash into retirement funds each year. There are many investment options, and if the money is put into Roth retirement accounts it is not taxed when it is taken out in the future.</p>
<p>They also have the option of putting some of the money into retirement annuities. Again, this will make it invisible to FAFSA in future years. However annuities are tricky investments, and it is much more difficult to cash out of them in the case of an emergency. Before they make that kind of investment, they need to research their options and get professional advice.</p>