<p>my financial aid from RPI is 40K while my aid from U of Rochester is a measly 13k. The only thing I did differently was do the CSS Profile for Rochester. Would that have been enough to make a difference of 27k?? I mean my EFC was only about 2200..</p>
<p>It would be interesting to compare financial aid from colleges that only require FAFSA , and colleges that require both FAFSA & CSS Profile !</p>
<p>U of R is a much more selective , and competitive school so perhaps there were too many competing for merit awards by the time they got to you . Also maybe you had some assets that were declared on the CSS Profile that RPI overlooked.</p>
<p>munkeegirl, I do not know anything about the U of Rochester, but on the CB website, it a says the UR meets 100% of financial need. It says the average grant award is over 21,000.</p>
<p>Well, the only thing I could think of is the home equity of the house we live in. It's worth 720,000 but we are paying mortgage for I think 300,000?</p>
<p>How do you have an EFC of 2200, if you can afford the payments on a 300,000 mortgage? I am not a financial expert, but this does not make sense to me. Also, having over 400,000 in home equity should change the package significantly for schools requiring the profile.</p>
<p>my parents only make around 40k a year combined, that might be it. And they don't have retirement plans.</p>
<p>we pay monthly 2500 out of 260K in debt</p>
<p>Maybe some other parents would be able to answer better. It appears that if your home is worth 720,000 and your mortgage is 260,000, then there is 460,000 in equity. That is a large amount of equity and perhaps this will effect the aid at all schools that consider the equity in one's home. I think that schools feel that your parents could use that equity to pay for college expenses. I think that they feel that living in such an expensive home is a lifestyle choice. I think that they ask for about 5.6% (I might be off a fraction) of your parents assets to pay for school. If they are calculating 5.6% of 460,000 that explains it.</p>