<p>I know the OP’s question is about assets, but financial aid formulas weight income more than assets, right?</p>
<p>Option 1 indicates the OP assumes they could qualify for a $350-$400K mortgage. That sounds like an income in the $100K range. So isn’t income maybe more of an issue here, especially with only one child in college (unless the school meets need)?</p>
<p>Good point.
OP needs to identify what they can pay from savings, current & future income.
</p>
<p>If their income is upward of $100,000, schools will expect them to contribute at least 33% of before tax income to educational expenses and schools that don’t meet need will expect even more.</p>
<p>We are not your average people with a chunk of money–we have saved carefully all our lives and made many sacrifices for our child. We are getting old and were extremely badly hit during the housing crisis. We have run EFC calculations, but they vary a great deal depending on the school, and it’s clear that if we leave our remaining equity in the bank, where it is now, we will get no financial aid. And</p>
<p>I wonder which schools they’ve run the NPCs. </p>
<p>It sounds like they have a good income and lots of savings from “saving all their lives.” </p>
<p>It seems hard to believe that on non-HYPS NPCs that they would get much/any “free money” at all. Even if they could get “family contribution” down to - say - $45k, the remaining “need” would likely get covered with student loans and work study.</p>
<p>Thanks again, everyone–all very good points. CTScoutmom, your idea of buying buying a house and having one of us move in before the FAFSA deadline to make it the primary residence for us (or at least one of us) is very interesting and potentially doable, especially since it really would be the primary residence–thanks. We’re convinced, though, that at this point we need to speak with a financial planner. We ran the EFCs for several top universities, a few top small liberal arts colleges, and our state university. There were massive differences, and not because of the state university. Like I said, we have a friend whose daughter was awarded $30K more per year at one top liberal arts college than at another! And it wasn’t merit aid or because of athletics or something like that. That’s something I don’t understand–these formulas should be more consistent from school to school (within a given tier and category of school, at least), even if they remain fundamentally unfair to people in the middle class who have saved.</p>
<p>I want to point out that you will have ONE EFC per financial scenario, not per college. You will have different expected contributions from NPCs from various colleges. And, yes, you can expect widely different awards. Some schools also give a lot of merit money. The NPCs are going to be difficult to predict when you have schools on there that have merit and that do not meet need. They pay for the students they want the most and give students packages according to how much they want them. So it will be all over the board.</p>
<p>Even the stingiest schools might come out with the most generous packages for the students they most want. I know several kids, for example, who got their best awards from NYU, and there was really no way to predict this. Statistically, NYU does not meet full need for most of its students. But, they do meet full need and then some for some of their students. Anytime you have a school that does not meet full need, you can get any kind of package from them, from virtually nothing from the school (just federal entitlements often packaged like you are getting something) to a full ride. That’s how much it can vary. The EFC will remain the same, but I don’t know a single school that guarantees to meet it as financial aid policy. Schools that guarantee to meet full need, or give most students close to full need tend to require PROFILE and define their own need. One school might cap Home Equity, another might not, another might not include primary home equity. Some want the value of your cars and also will take 401 Ks (and they all do ask for that info on PROFILE) into account. Others won;t. It varies that widely.</p>
<p>“we have a friend whose daughter was awarded $30K more per year at one top liberal arts college than at another! And it wasn’t merit aid or because of athletics or something like that.”</p>
<p>Each place gets to make up its own policy about how it handles institutional aid. So yes, $30k differences between what appear to an outsider to be peer institutions are not at all unusual. Unless you were sitting in on the admissions and financial aid committee meetings there is no way for you as an outsider to know why this particular student got the package she did. It may have had a merit factor, or a geography factor, or it may have been an entirely need-based formula that just happened to permit a significantly more generous assessment of that student’s need. And it could have been due to a one-time date entry error that will give that family collective heart attacks next year when the aid package that should have been offered this year suddenly appears.</p>
<p>“these formulas should be more consistent from school to school (within a given tier and category of school, at least)”</p>
<p>Aid packages used to be consistent (at least within certain tiers) and families knew that if the kid got into X, Y, or Z the cost to the family would be the same, because the colleges/universities shared that information with each other and made certain that the packages were equivalent. But then a parent got ticked off and wanted the colleges and universities to have to bid for his kid. He called in a lawyer, and took it to the Supreme Court. Now the colleges and universities can’t share that kind of information. At least we have the NPCs. Even three years ago those didn’t exist.</p>
<p>All you can do as a parent, is determine what you truly are ready, willing, and able to pay, and then be willing to hold the line if X, Y, or Z prove to be unaffordable for your family. Let your kid know the limits. There are lots of very fine colleges and universities out there. Surely there are some that meet your standards for academic quality, will provide your kid with solid preparation for life, and fall within your budget. If you and your kid have not identified any yet, then you haven’t looked hard enough.</p>
<p>When you start by running the NPCs for individual colleges- and get numbers that freak you- and then come up with a handful of scenarios- I feel like you have skipped steps in the usual process. You’re plugging in your data, as it is, and not getting happy NPC results; then asking should we buy this or invest in that.</p>
<p>I’m not clear whether you did run a Fafsa Forecaster or the ITAP (link above.) These allow you to play with scenarios, no saving the run, no submitting, just you tinkering to see what’s advantageous.</p>
<p>@ cptofthehouse: Thanks–this is pretty unfortunate. It would be much better if every school used the same system so that the only variations resulted from differences in tuition, transportation costs, etc. That way, people could weigh the costs in advance and decide whether or not to even apply.</p>
<p>@happymomof1: Interesting history there. As for colleges, we’re extremely familiar with them, know what we’re willing to pay and have discussed that with our child, and well aware that students can get excellent educations at many places (and for many prices, including free online programs). As I said earlier, things have changed a lot from the way they were back in the day. It could well be that 30 years from now, relatively few colleges will even exist (at least in their current forms).</p>
<p>@looking forward: I did the EFCs that were on or linked to each school’s site. Some programs were the same (asked for the same data), and others were different. But even within ones that were the same, I got very different results. No typos, either, so who knows. The whole system makes no sense.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate. But that is what freedom does. The FAFSA will give you one EFC, however, and from that you know what federal aid entitlement your student has, but really, it comes down to loans in a case like yours, I’m pretty sure. I doubt you will be PELL eligible and that maxes out at $5600 anyways.</p>
<p>When you look at financial planners, make sure they know how college aid rules work. Many don’t. Nearly none can really navigate you precisely, because in addition to each school being able to make their own policies, they can also change them person to person in the same time frame, and change any policies at any time, and they tend to keep the way they do things very much to themselves. Trying to get any formulas for the “holistic” part of their decisions is impossible. They probably don’t have any, and do a lot by the moment, depending on the applicant pool and money left.</p>
<p>The best thing to do, for anyone, is to pick some sure bets–schools that you know you can afford, that will take your student, and have the programs s/he needs and wants. That is the most difficult part of the college search and the part too many skimp on. As it is much more fun to cherry pick the name brands and wish and hope. Once you have the standards, in place, you start adding the lottery tickets. Some schools might be an absolute no go–for example international students who need money are wasting their time applying to schools specifically excluding them for aid/merit. Or anyone who knows that there is no fin aid in the picture has to be well aware that ivies do not give merit money, so hoping for some from any is a waste of time. and applying to schools have only a handful of big awards is playing a lottery with low odds of winning. </p>
<p>You vary the eggs in your basket and see what hatches.</p>