<p>The one piece of good financial aid advice that WILL help with positioning is that if you have substantial amount of consumer debt, to pay that off. Consumer debt is bad in any case, and since the financial aid formulas consider assets and not debt, then paying off the debt is actually the best way to give them a more accurate picture of your net worth. </p>
<p>However… if you own income producing rental property, it is highly unlikely that you would qualify for much, if any, financial aid in any case. The combination of assets + income would probably push your income too high. (And as already noted, selling a piece of property below market or giving up a good income producing investment for the purpose of hiding assets from consideration is a really stupid move in any event.) One think that these advisors don’t tell you is simply that there is no guarantee of grant aid in any case. Just because a family has an EFC of, say, $15,000, doesn’t mean that the college their kid attends is going to meet it. Sometimes the net result of a reduced EFC is that your kid qualifies to take out more loans and work more hours at a campus work-study job. And sometimes a lower EFC simply means a bigger “gap” when all is said and done.</p>