<p>My father is in the high tech industry and has been part of a few successful start-ups. His yearly income is about 120,000 to 140,000 yearly. My mother doesn't work (THANK GOD) so family income is 99% determined by my father's income. </p>
<p>I know that in that range, I can still get FA cover like maybe 50% of tuition? But here is the bad part. My father has TONS of stocks, totaling to about 500k which he claims is for retirement. We live very modestly as my father is very frugal, but may this habit bite me back later on in college?</p>
<p>Does this asset part of my father's balance sheet kill my chances for financial aid? Should I even try to get aid, cause 50k from an Ivy league style school is not going to be good...</p>
<p>Yes, your dad’s stocks will be counted for (or should I say against) your FA. He will have to send a copy of his federal income tax report, and also list real estate, homes, businesses, and autos as assets in the FA forms. Just because a parent prefers to keep all his money for retirement, does not make a student eligible for FA.</p>
<p>Most schools have formulas on their FA websites to calculate FA eligibility. By spending a few minutes doing the calculations, you’ll quickly determine if you have “need” in the school’s eyes.</p>
<p>Autos and your own residence are not counted as assets at FAFSA-only schools but many schools do have a form that requires additional information or they require the CSS Profile which does ask about cars and home equity. </p>
<p>Djokovic, Unless there is something tremendous you are leaving out (like you have siblings in college and/or you are one of 12 children or something like that), you are unlikely to get need-based aid other than student loans. Anyone who fills out a FAFSA can take a small government student loan. You may be able to apply for merit-based aid but that income is in the top few percentages of the population and financial aid is supposed to be for kids who can’t go to college without it.</p>
<p>The first question is, is part or all the 500k in actual retirement accounts (eg. 401k, IRAs, etc) or is it all in regular stock/mutual fund holdings? The later will be counted as assets, the former are more fuzzy, as the Profile asks how much your family has in retirement accounts but I’ve never seen a school actually say how they use this number.</p>
<p>If you run a FAFSA calculator, you should be able to see pretty clearly if you qualify or not. For Profile it will depend more on the individual school, but then you have to add i home equity as part of your assets. I agree with 2cwg, unless there is something outstanding that takes away from your bottom line, it is very unlikely that you will get any need based aid except from maybe the most generous schools (HYPS).</p>
<p>We are in a similar situation, but with lower income and similar assets counting investments and home equity, we were offered zero FA from schools the likes of Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst, WUSTL; but did receive FA from HYP.</p>