<p>I was wondering if it was normal that my son's Penn financial package expects 33,000$ from me although my FASFA EFC calculated my EFC to be 11,000$? My adjusted gross income is 37,000$ so if I had to pay son's Penn cost then I would to live on <4,000. I plan on contacting the financial aid office but I don't know how to approach this? I do own a second house but I have only paid off 15% off the mortgage----do you think this is why I have to pay so much?</p>
<p>Thank you! Please share you experience with contacting financial aid office and advice on how I should approach them.</p>
<p>The only thing the FAFSA does is qualify you for federal aid. The CSS profile takes a more in depth look at your finances and how you have spent your money.</p>
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<p>Any equity in the house in addition to any income generated from the house is up for grabs to pay off college. </p>
<p>Are you divorced? If yes, did your ex file the non-custodial profile (because his income and assets will be used to determine how much financial aid your child will receive)?</p>
<p>in a previous post you wrote</p>
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<p>Do you own your own business?</p>
<p>Are you putting money into a 401k/403b for retirement? If yes, then that money is back out and is considered to be used to pay for college.</p>
<p>Some of your 310k in assets are going to be counted to pay for college. Even if the school assessed that you should use 5% of your assets to pay toward college your EFC would increase by 15.5k</p>
<p>Yes, schools don’t care about debt so much. Do you rent out your house?
They also may be considering equity in your residence.
FAFSA doesn’t consider your equity in your residence but they would for your 2nd home.</p>
<p>Of course, call and ask so you understand what was used to generate your expected contribution. As others have posted, PROFILE schools use assets that are not used for FAFSA’s EFC generation. Equity in your primary home, Non custodial parent financials, even the cars you might own are all fair game. </p>
<p>But there also could be a mistake, so find out exactly what the differences from FAFSA’s methodology are.</p>
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<li>correction–I wrote that I only paid 15% but actually, I’ve paid 45%
The rent is about 1,000/month. What is left after utilities (not very much left) goes toward my mortgage and actually, I usually have to pay more on the house—repairs and such than the rent covers. Mortgage each month is about 4000$ (=48,000/yr). (We live extremely frugally and are digging into our meager savings to pay for this). </li>
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<p>2) regarding NCP–my ex-wife is unemployed, has no savings/assets and thus I am the only one who can contribute to my son’s education</p>
<p>3) of my assets 310,000, 290,000 is my second house that I’m trying to pay off and I have about 20,000 in savings. </p>
<p>4) My son has yet to have a car. I was saving money to buy him a car—unfortunately, it doesn’t seem possible with the 33,000 tuition. </p>
<p>5) I do own two businesses, and they are the sole generator of my income-not alot. In addition, I owe close to 40,000$ on one of them because business has been doing poorly but is unable to close it due to many reasons so it’s accumulating more debt. </p>
<p>I hope these information can give you a better ability to evaluate my financial situation . Even if I used that 20,000$ in my bank, I still need to find 13,000 elsewhere. I will definitely contact the financial aid office. But which is a better method-call or email? Thanks all for the helpful advices!</p>
<p>If anyone else can shed light regarding whether there’s a chance for my EFC to reduce please help me! I really want to be able to fulfill my son’s dream of attending Penn!</p>
<p>2) regarding NCP–my ex-wife is unemployed, has no savings/assets and thus I am the only one who can contribute to my son’s education</p>
<p>??? Has your ex remarried? If so, her spouse’s income would be counted.</p>
<p>The fact that you own your business is probably the problem. Schools often “add back in” some of your deductions.</p>
<p>How can you pay a $4k per month mortgage if your income is so low. I suspect that Penn doesn’t believe that you really earn so little when you’re paying that much for a mortgage.</p>
<p>I don’t care how “meager” you live, a homeowner does have expenses…utilites, insurance, property taxes, etc…plus food, etc.</p>
<p>Something just doesn’t make sense…someone who earns so little doesn’t take on a $4k per month mortgage. Your mortgage is twice mine…and I live in a big house. What are you living in?</p>
<p>This is starting to sound like one of those situations where the person keeps two sets of books. One that makes his income seem high…to qualify for high mortgages…and then one that makes him look poor for FA purposes.</p>
<p>He says that he’s “saving for a car” for his son. Just exactly HOW does someone save for a car when just their mortgage is higher than their income. Sorry, the jig is up. The income really is much higher…and Penn realizes that.</p>
<p>Thank you for pinpointing to where your suspicion arises from. I don’t want to delve into details too much but here’s the gist</p>
<p>-the second house was never intended to be lived in-I bought it pre-recession because I thought I could I could sell it higher since real estate was promising. However the value has dropped so much that I would lose a lot of money selling it. Also, the house is not as great as you think —it’s in a city so land is pricey. My own house is only about 150k and I had the rent paid off before I our bought the second house. Also, I was only able to buy the second house because before the recession,y business was doing very well so I made 2x-3x more than I do now. Also, even back then, our family lived frugally—we never went on a single trip and saved all our money other than the normal expenses in the bank. My son is our only child and he has attended a public school all his life. Unlike many other kids, he never ask for video games and only borrows books from the library so we don’t spend much either. ----So in conclusion, several years ago paying the mortgage was easy and we still managed to save quite a bit in the bank. Now other than basic expenses, all my money goes into paying mortars and I have taken out the majority of my savings to pay too. I didn’t explain my past fiancial background at all on CSS—I hope it can clarify.</p>
<p>If I actually had a lot of money—I wouldn’t be posting this at all. My son is all I have left—I would dig my heart out for him if I had to. He received two full-rides and other superb offers but I know Penn is his dream. If I care about money that much, I very well can tell him to just take the full-ride.</p>
<p>I do not think that this is going to help your cause. Because you have a paid off house which the school may look at equity that you can borrow from and you have a 2nd home that they are looking at as an asset</p>
<p>The bottom line is that UPenn is seeing something of significant value amongst either your assets or your businesses. From that they’ve determined that you don’t need much aid. Since assets alone are only calculated at about 6% (beyond the initial exemptions), that either means that you have significant assets or deductions from the businesses that they are adding back in.</p>
<p>If your son has a couple of free rides, I suggest that he go those routes. I highly doubt UPenn is going to go from expecting $33k down to a number that you can afford for the next 4 years. They might go down to $30k or something, but since your mortgage is higher than your income, how can you really pay ANYTHING without wiping out your savings?</p>
<p>Even if the market has had a downturn, schools are going to consider any assets/equity as sources of future money.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but a family shouldn’t wipe out their savings for some “college dream”…that’s just silly. There are millions of kids who’ve worked very hard and they have to accept the reality of going where their family can afford to send them.</p>
<p>Yes. My son said he’d take the free ride as soon as he saw what we had to pay for Penn but I guess I just hate being unable to help him. I’ve even considered try to sell my second house even though I’d have to sell it for alot less than what I bought it for- I doubt I can
get it off my hands soon enough though. I will have a talk tonight about taking one of the free rides.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids
Thank you for the thoughtful advices you have provided in the past days. These several days has been like a roller coaster ride for me—ecstatic for son’s Penn acceptance then stress over paying.</p>