NPCs and Divorced Parents

Paying for College
1

I realize that the Net Price Calculators aren’t accurate when it comes to divorced parents, but are they somewhat accurate in colleges’ relativity to each other?

For example: D20 is really just starting her college search. She has TCU, SMU and Baylor on the list. Using my data, TCU would be the more affordable option followed by Baylor and then SMU. Would it be similar once we get her father’s data? (He is an alcoholic and often unemployed, which makes knowing his income even more difficult.)

2

Well, not necessarily. Different schools’ NPCs can differ in their ability to accurately reflect their schools’ institutional policies on the extent to which they view noncustodial parent income and assets as available to pay for college costs. In particular, if the NPC does not ask for noncustodial parent info but the school is a Profile school that will eventually require a noncustodial Profile (e.g. Baylor) then the NPC result has to be taken with a huge grain of salt for now. It’s not asking for a lot of critical info that ultimately would be considered in generating a financial aid offer, so it easily could be an overestimate or an underestimate.

Moreover, the schools’ noncustodial policies – and their overall financial aid budgets – can change from year to year and they can be slow to update their NPCs to reflect those changes. I just happened to look at Baylor’s the other day and it said the result it generates is an average package received for the 2015-16 school year by a student with that level of income.

3

No way to tell. Each college developed their own NPC. Who knows how much work/accuracy went into each?

4

Is she in the range for merit scholarships? SMU (and I assume TCU and Baylor) tend to offer decent merit $ that could completely change the financial picture. I’m not sure if I would rule out a school based on NPC at this point. Also, I know that SMU has, for instance, engineering school scholarships that may also be added to the university granted scholarships - which, for us, was a game changer.

5

@azmomof3 In the lower range for merit scholarships most likely. She’s currently a sophomore so at this point everything is a guesstimate. But, let me say, that if TCU’s is anywhere near accurate, it will be near the top of the list. It came very, very close to meeting even my definition of full need (and I doubled my figures to account for her deadbeat father).

6

First of all…how likely is it that your ex will fill out the NCP portion of the aid application? And will he do it for 4 years?

7
  1. Check if the college requires NCP information.
  2. If it does not require NCP information, use the net price calculator with CP information only.
  3. If it does require NCP information, check for instructions on the college's web site on how to use the net price calculator in this case. A few colleges are pretty clear about this (e.g. Princeton: https://swebapps.princeton.edu/FinAid/finaid_form.pl ) but others (whose policies may not be the same as Princeton's) are not. If it is not clear, ask directly.
  4. If a college does require NCP information but the NCP will not cooperate, then remove the college from the list, or treat it as a reach based on the difficulty of getting an NCP waiver, unless it can be made affordable without need-based financial aid from the school (e.g. through merit scholarships and Pell/state grants that use FAFSA only -- but non-automatic merit scholarships are usually best treated as reaches).
8

@mom2collegekids I’d give it slightly more than 50/50 on his own, but if DD or someone sat there with him while he filled it out, it would be closer to 100%. I’ve already talked to his parents and have been assured they will see to it that he does it. I’ll cross the waiver bridge when we come to it in regards to specifics, but he does have enough contact with her that I doubt she would get a waiver. The larger problem is his lack of predictable employment. When he does work, it’s mostly minimum wage jobs so I doubt it’s going to have much, if any, negative effect on D. I was just wondering if there is a general correlation between a divorced mom only EFC and both parent EFC in relationship to various colleges with each other just so that we can go ahead and start getting a general list going without having to apply to massive amounts of schools. If, say, SMU is going to cost us significantly more than TCU with and without his EFC, then there really is no reason to keep SMU on the list.