<p>wd90, I like your solutions. I have to add: hide your diamonds and gold coins in a compost pile to cover up any evidence. :D</p>
<p>A million years ago I was accepted to college with a need based grant, then naively spent a lot of time writing an essay for a scholarship contest, won the contest, lost the grant…</p>
<p>One more thing to remember: Just because a school doesn’t require the Profile doesn’t mean that it’s a “FAFSA-only” school. Many schools have their own applications (University of Richmond was one), which means they also have their own methodology for calculating aid. </p>
<p>Just another wrinkle to keep all of us guessing.</p>
<p>Good point Chedva. And for all those new to the war Profile isn’t the end of it at some schools. At some you get to fill out a supplement, too. :eek: The most specific supplemental form asked about our vehicles including when they were purchased and how much we paid.</p>
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<p>that’s also the case usually with merit aid to nmf’s…some schools will cover full tuition or give full-ride. one school we dealt with would have provided full ride and it was not necessary to apply for “financial aid” with them…no FAFSA required. </p>
<p>the usual caveat is that the financial aid (scholarships, grants, work study, loans) can’t exceed the COA…if I remember correctly. this comes into play when there are outside scholarships involved. did i get this right, curmudgeon?</p>
<p>with each school you also have to see what their particular policy is on merit aid. do they allow scholarship “stacking?”</p>
<p>The information on this thread about FA is excellent and overwhelming. My mind is just buzzing with all of these important points. Our family is receiving FA for the first time and hope to keep receiving it for the next three years. </p>
<p>We need a list that we could edit and add to as necessary so that the most salient info is all in one place. I am keeping a list, if anyone wants to see it. Or I would be happy to see someone else’s list.</p>
<p>Could someone address how self-employment affects EFC? My husband has found work this year as a self-employed contractor. All of our previous income has been as standard W-2 employees so this is new to us and I have only done the calculators with W-2 income. I know he’s paying double the social security tax for one thing. I cover us with benefits from my job. I don’t think he’s considered a business with a value since it’s just him but what am I missing? There’s no store or material possessions, just services being provided.</p>
<p>Re post #190, I don’t know if you were referring to my post #188, but the income I cited was GROSS, not after paying for cars, housing, or even health insurance (over $300 per month for a policy with a $15K deductible).</p>
<p>We did use a number of calculators, including Amherst’s, the College Board, et al. They all came out to about the same EFC, which obviously was not derived from a method used by most “100% need” colleges. (Their method <em>might</em> be to figure your EFC then double it, or triple it if you have any home equity–even if your income is too low to make the home equity payments.) </p>
<p>My message is this: use the calculators, and then realize that if you have ANY assets at all the calculators are completely useless. </p>
<p>As I said, I never expected them to actually meet our EFC, but I really did not think it would be this bad. I only hope that they will pay some attention to the appeal.</p>
<p>Someone asked WHY they would heavily advertise to all and sundry that they “meet 100% of need” and that you should never hesitate to apply because of finances when all along they are planning to gap almost everyone. It’s obvious: the more suckers you draw in, the better you look in USN&WR. It’s like making pious statements about how you want “diversity” while wooing URMs from private schools and rejecting those who have actually battled their way through lousy urban schools.</p>
<p>The problem with all of these lovely scholarships you suggest, Curm, is that you have to be the lucky student who GETS them.</p>
<p>Sblake7, Thank you for such simplicity! I can be happy knowing I wasn’t just being lazy or stupid. (who ever wants to leave money on the table?)</p>
<p>Sybbie179, Thank you for the compare and contrast for the FAFSA and CSS, FM and IM (or whatever it all is). I can (almost) get a handle on that now. And if I actually worked at it, I’m pretty sure your tutorial would make it possible for me to understand it.</p>
<p>Curdmudgeon and Chedva, Thanks for everything. Your posts always help me.</p>
<p>MomOfFour–I’ve been self-employed for 20+ years but am just now venturing into FAFSA land, so perhaps someone else could answer this question better. Surely there are threads on CC about the topic. I found both the FAFSA and the Profile pretty unforgiving in terms of being able to show my income history. The fair way would be to ask for an average over X years, but of course they don’t do that. You’re right, your H is not a business with a value. And they don’t seem to take into account the high social security tax. </p>
<p>Catching up on all these posts this morning makes my head spin. I’m almost glad we did not qualify for need-based aid so I don’t have to worry about whether we’ll be able to keep it next year. In our case, an outside grant is canceling out a university merit scholarship; but a student we know attending another university with a different policy is receiving the same outside grant AND a merit scholarship. What gives with that?</p>
<p>Regarding self-employment, you’ll find the FAFSA to be pretty straightforward, Read through the Worksheets A, B, and C and the explanations will give you a good handle. </p>
<p>As usual, the “issues” start with the CSS/Profile as self-employed will find a number of their business expenses reclassified as non-deductible. This is also what happens to people who derive income from investments that allow depreciation or depletion expenses. The Profile aims to recapture income that was tax-free for tax purposes but represented real cash. </p>
<p>As a rule of thumb, the net income that flows to the bottom of a Schedule C will be bumped up since all expenses won’t qualify as cash expenses for financial aid purposes. But this does not mean that business owners or self-employed are “screwed” by the system. If a typical W2 earner can’t depreciate his car or his home computer, in the eyes of the finaid developers, there is no reason why self-employed could do it.</p>
<p>xig. (Ridiculously simplified. Tax people , don’t nitpick.
) I buy a xerox machine January 1 for $3000 for my business use solely. Assume a business life for IRS purposes of 3 years. IRS allows me to deduct depreciation of $1000 that first year. Remember , I paid $3K. Profile says “well, you have to add that $1000 back in.” Say what? I spent $3K. That $1K is gone plus two more. I don’t think W-2 employees face that joy. Now if your point is “some people deduct stuff that ain’t deductible or depreciate items that are not for business use” then find them and tar and feather them. Let the rest of us get treated fairly. In 3 years is the college going to help me buy a new xerox when that one craps out? ;)</p>
<p>Here’s something else that W-2 people don’t have to think about: My self-employed income took a nose dive when I started being the primary caregiver for my elderly mother. I can document the income drop AND the elder care expenses to the penny. But I don’t think they read all the way to the “other” box to find this out (and on the FAFSA they don’t care). I should not be complaining, though. Thank heavens for state universities that are perfect fits.</p>
<p>We have been clear from the beginning of the process last year with D that we have planned to be able to pay for her to attend a state school, so she was required to apply to 2 of those. Beyond that she could apply wherever she was interested in attending, and we’d see where the acceptances and the finances were at the end of the process. </p>
<p>Fortunately, she received several acceptances and several merit scholarships. We prepared a spread sheet, estimating the costs over 4 years of increases (we just assumed a 5% increase per year), how much she would be required to contribute through either working or scholarships or loans, to attend each. The school she seems to like the best also seems to like her the best in terms of helping her meet her part of the costs, so she will be able to attend a private school in the end. Her younger sister had a sudden realization that there could be expectations on her as well when the time comes, and it seems to have provided extra motivation for her in terms of school performance and interest in getting a job in high school.</p>
<p>This being said, I’m just supporting the other parents here who recommend early communication! Carry on!</p>
<p>Cur, talk to your friendly Xerox representative about LEASING the darn machine. Or talk to your accountant about Sec. 179. :)</p>
<p>This said, I DO understand your example and I am sure that there are other limitations in being able to deduct certain items. From what I am gathering from a few examples, the finaid people are mostly interested in recapturing expenses from private cars used in business, deductions from home offices, and depreciation on real estate. </p>
<p>Hard to believe that the financial aid people might be more heartless than the IRS, especially with the poor Central Texas ranchers. I wonder how they’d look at Dubya’s Crawford ranch.</p>
<p>I’ve just started reading this and it’s an eye opener. I have a junior daughter–high achiever. Family income over what would qualify for FA but in the bind of not affording private university price tags with cost of living where we are. Through PSAT results (no National Merit official stuff yet) there have been many cards and emails from schools, but how can we find which colleges would offer merit scholarships to attract high achievers and have her check them out?</p>
<p>Agree 110% with Cur. Everyone talks about throwing out depreciation expense because it’s “just a paper expense”; i.e. not a “real” cash flow expense. That’s correct–the only problem is, as cur points out, that the initial purchase that generated the depreciation was most definitely a real cash flow expense. Unfortunately, f/a people don’t seem to understand that one.</p>
<p>Hey, geezermom - I think it all depends on the individual school (re your questions about “what gives” with the external grant/merit scholarship thing.) I asked this question to all the schools to which my D was admitted; if given an external scholarship or grant, 3 of the schools would reduce the merit aid and 2 would not.</p>
<p>xig, dubya has decided to build in Highland Park. </p>
<p>And on my C they didn’t like anything I put down 
and I don’t have any RE (on that form) or take a deduction for a home office. I do however deduct my business use of my truck using the mileage allowance. (We drive about 50,000 miles a year and I get to deduct about 25% of that). I do this in lieu of actual depreciation and maintenance and gasoline (got rid of the road going diesels just in time, Thank God. $4.29 a gallon. :eek:).</p>
<p>junparent:<br>
I had good advice from the parent of a NMF last year. Among the multitude of criteria to sort out all the schools, once they got to a list of schools their NMF was interested in, they looked at the published scores for the 25-50% SAT/ACT/GPA/etc. (each school publishes this information, but you sometimes have to dig through the website to find it) If your child’s data is above the numbers for the 25-50 percentile accepted at that school, they are more likely to receive merit aid, simply because they would be in the upper crust of the applicants for the school. The bigger the difference, the better the options, but you’ll want to make sure the school has the intellectual environment suitable for your child, too. There are lots of really great, but smaller schools, that love high achievers but might not be on the top of everyone’s tongue nationally. Good Luck!</p>
<p>Oh, and you can plan on your mailbox being full of prospective college information from now until sometime spring of senior year. Also recommend that your child set up a separate email account just for college information. Then they can keep all that stuff together electronically and separate from their personal emails. Once you’re done with the college info you can drop that account.</p>