<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I wonder if any parents who have gone through the process of doing the NCP form of CSS Profile can share their experience with the aid offered.</p>
<p>I'm basically wondering if the colleges your kids got into took the non-custodial parent income into account exactly as if s/he lived in your household or if it counted less or what.</p>
<p>Like if your FAFSA EFC was 0, would have been $20K if other parent were in the same household, if the Profile school came up with a number closer to the first or second number, something in between or what. (and I know assets, etc get taken into account with Profile too, I'm just looking to get a general sense of things).</p>
<p>I hope my question makes sense? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Supposedly, the NCP income is not just added to the CP income as if all are living in one house. there is an assumption that 2 homes are being supported.</p>
<p>Some imagine that it works like this.</p>
<p>Family 1…income/assets are looked at, and a contribution is determined.</p>
<p>family 2…income/assets are looked at, and a contribution is determined.</p>
<p>School then adds the two contributions together and gives the total amount expected. Some schools will break the amounts up between families, but many schools do NOT break the amount up…they just give one big number. Unfortunately, that can be unfair when one family’s income is a lot higher than the others.</p>
<p>I have been through this with 2 children. It will vary by school. For the schools that “meet full need” I have generally seen:</p>
<ol>
<li>Run the NPC for the custodial parent (mother in my case counting my 2 children) and get a Net Price (parent contribution). There is often a student contribution of some combination loans/work study/summer earnings.</li>
<li>Run the NPC a second time for the NCP (father in my case) Note you count the shared children in both households. Don’t forget any new & or step children.
3.Add the 2 parent contributions together and roughly that will be the amount you may be expected to pay.</li>
</ol>
<p>The student will be awarded basically the same work study/summer contribution/loans. If the parents incomes are very different (i.e. EFC=0 and EFC=25k) they may award loans/work study/ etc differently.</p>
<p>Good luck. It really is next to impossible to guess what will be the outcome in any specific case but this may help give you an idea.</p>
<p>I appreciate the input so far!</p>
<p>The specific situation involves two divorced parents and two shared kids, this question applies to second kid in college, first one will be a senior in college that first year.</p>
<p>NewEngland when you say “count shared children” may I ask, if, in the above situation, you’d run an EFC estimator with two households of 3 people each?</p>
<p>If the custodial parent’s EFC is 0 (or Pell eligible), then the student will get Pell and maybe sub loans even even if the NCP’s income is high, since fed aid is based on FAFSA EFC.</p>
<p>NEMom’s description is similar to mine. Each family’s situation is calculated, and then the resulting two “contributions” are added together. </p>
<p>NEMom…were you given two sep contributions? or one big one for the 2 families to figure out which should pay what?</p>