<p>I am writing this for a friend who is divorced. The net price calculators that she's looked at for her daughter are schools that use the CSS profile. The instructions on the ones that she used were to run the calculation twice, once for each parent. Her question is what to do with that info....does that mean that the expectation is that the results will be added together to make the net cost? EG - in her situation, her ex makes significantly more than she does. Her estimated cost was around $5,000 and her ex's came out to full pay. Does that mean it's full pay? Or, as an example: If parent A cost is $10,000 and parent B is $20,000, would you say that the actual (estimated) cost is $20,000 or the average, $15,000?
Thanks for any insight....</p>
<p>Since these things are so new, it will be interesting to hear people speculate or perhaps some are played with the Profile schools. Frankly if one parent is at $10,000 and one come in at $20,000 I would expect the answer to be $30,000 unless they knock come percent off the non-custodial parent expectations, but then each Profile school could also handle it differently.</p>
<p>If one parent is full pay then with both incomes it will be … full pay.</p>
<p>^^ I suspect that is true or darn close to full pay at least for schools that require the non-custodial parent form. Those schools expect both parent to fund the student’s college expenses.</p>
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That was pretty much my guess.
Her older child goes to a moderately priced state school that just used FAFSA, so only her income was considered. Even with that, though, he only got an unsubsidized Stafford loan and her ex won’t pay beyond that. Child #2 is looking at several more “elite” schools that use CSS. Dad is claiming that he’ll help pay at these schools, but my guess is that he is unaware of the differences between schools that use FAFSA vs. CSS and that his salary is also counted.
I hate that he’s letting his D get her hopes up about a place that there’s no way she’ll be able to go without significant help from her dad. And judging from past behavior, that is very unlikely.
Thanks for your input.</p>