quick question

Applying to College
1

<p>Does how much debt your parents have play any part in how much financial aid you get? I was filling out the Parent Monthly CAsh Flow worksheet on the Harvard Financial Aid website, which asks for monthly salary and how much we pay for utilities, credit card, insurance, automobile, etc. and our net amount turned out to be negative, which is why my family has taken out several loans (like 3 or 4, not counting my sister's medical school loan). i think harvard is the only school that asks for this. would it be worthwhile to make a copy of this and send out to my other colleges? or does debt not count in financial aid awards?</p>

<p>thanks a lot for your responses!!!</p>

<p>(PS: the financial aid forum is kinda dead, so i thought i'd get more responses from here)</p>

2

<p>bump? .....</p>

3

<p>Consumer debt is not used in calculating FA, and so having a lot of credit card debt can hurt you. The fact that Harvard is even asking about it might show a bit of consideration on their part, but consumer debt doesn't not reduce assets on the FAFSA. You might look at:</p>

<p><a href="http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/Cutcollegecosts/P36841.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/Cutcollegecosts/P36841.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>There are EFC estimators available on the web. The one at College Board is at:</p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/efc_welcome.jsp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/efc_welcome.jsp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>