<p>Your plan is exactly that which I have. Bummer.</p>
<p>The only other thing I could offer up is that financial aid offices often state that if there is a disparity their award v. that from other schools they would be willing to re-evaluate theirs if you send them copies of the other awards. I am not sure there was a disparity in the overall aid package, or just a difference in the way they treated the prepaid tuition. It doesn't sound as if the option of reevaluation was offered to you during your phone conversation, but if the total package was signficantly out of line from all of the other Profile schools, see if they would be willing to re-exam it against copies of the other offers.</p>
<p>To the extent that any difference in offers related solely to how they treated the prepaid tuition $, I doubt the favored school will or eve should budge. But maybe there is something else going on here that might make the difference between the net aid package from that school and others. </p>
<p>I actually did mis-characterize the 529 component of our savings and the one school which was out of line with the others (as in your child's case, the favorite school) was able, upon reviewing the other awards, to speculate what the problem might have been. After a brief phone discussion, Favorite School's award was put right in line with all of the others. Favorite school was correctly interpreting the information as I reported it - the other schools were giving me the favorable interpretation regardless. In the end, the prepaid portion was still treated in the same fashion, but the net amount of aid to me was essentially the same across the board, the only difference being that at Favorite school there was no loan or work study and at the other schools there was a modest amount.</p>
<p>Hopefully the school will look at the other offers - its surely worth a shot. You can't "negotiate" your package, but you can typically ask for a re-evaluation as a way to explain a real discrepancy in total aid, and you can let them know that, aside from this concern, theirs is far and away the school of choice (if that is true).</p>
<p>After all was said and done, I started to view the prepaid tuition plan funds as more loan that you take out far in advance and which is paid in full by the time college starts - with the slight advantage that you can almost bet college tuition in VA will increase each year so that to the degree it does, your available funds will maybe keep pace with inflation.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>