<p>junparent, just click this . Happy hunting. Be sure to pack a lunch. ;)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=11187146[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=11187146</a></p>
<p>junparent, here is a recent CC conversation on this topic:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/211927-institutional-merit-based-scholarships-full-tuition-11.html?highlight=merit+aid+for+national[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/211927-institutional-merit-based-scholarships-full-tuition-11.html?highlight=merit+aid+for+national</a></p>
<p>edit: curm wins ('m not worthy…)</p>
<p>Cur, I feel your pain and I am not dismissing the real costs of keeping that truck on the road. </p>
<p>However, for the sake of keeping straight, it’s good to remind readers that the recapture of depreciation expenses is a CSS/Profile issue and not a FAFSA issue. </p>
<p>This is probably why some people might think that the self-employed and small business owner is “gettin’ away” with something while the W-2 taxpayers are stuck with their reported income and no ability to deduct that fancy-schmancy car. </p>
<p>The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.</p>
<p>PS Good for Dubya. Living in Highland Park will allow for many long trips to his own presidential library. Do you think they’ll have a cartoon books’ section? Darn, that was not a Xiggi-like comment when it gets to Bush.</p>
<p>In reference to Consolation’s post about inaccurate calculators–you said that assets would make a difference, so not to assume the calculators were accurate. I always used the Collegeboard Calculator which combined IM and FM methodologies, so it did ask for assets. The EFC I got was just about identical to the one calculated by the college.</p>
<p>xig, here’s one from Schedule F you might like. I have a double axle stock trailer. I paid about $5,000 for it new. (All steel and nothing fancy and weighs a little less than a ton and a half. It is NOT a fancy aluminum show horse trailer.) I get to deduct it using 179 . So I deduct $5k from gross receipts, “artificially lowering” my income by $5K according to Profile. They won’t even give me my $1000. They add the $5k back in to that year’s income. This is the fun part. That trailer is now an asset and that raises my ranch assets by some number reflective of ACV. So let me see. A trailer that I have to have to have to move animals to and from market that I can’t deduct or depreciate and now I have to include it in my assets. Hmmmm. What the heck was I supposed to do? Set up a “cook your own steaks” table at the ranch? LOL. Bring your own fork.</p>
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<p>The lawsuit by the two dissident condo owners over the acquisition of the property adjacent to SMU for the library is still on appeal to the 5th Circuit. So, Baylor may still have a shot at it. Then it would be a long drive from HP.</p>
<p>curmudgeon + xiggi,
this sounds like a board game - kind of like Shoots and Ladders. Maybe you could collaborate and sell it to Parker Brothers …</p>
<p>Completely OT:</p>
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<p>What’s he going there to do Xig? All they are going to have are those book thing-ys. Some of those with big words like “exit strategy” or “foresight”. ;)</p>
<p>cur:</p>
<p>re: your double axle trailer…isn’t that what cattle rides are for? (Perhaps Billy Cristal can lead one for you.)</p>
<p>I can’t help but wonder if part of the problem with figuring out how to pay for college is that the costs are so high that most of us just can’t comprehend.</p>
<p>I think if someone presented me with a scenario of ‘this school is going to cost 6k per year, and this one is going to cost 9k’ I would be able to wrap my head around that, dissect what I can pay, and make a decision (which would be to take the 6k option). But when you’re throwing numbers around that are 40 and 50 thousand dollars PER YEAR, it’s really difficult to comprehend that. The numbers are so high that there is just an ‘unreality’ about them. Not to mention the fact that it’s 50k for family ‘A’, but for family ‘B’ it’s 30k, and for family ‘C’ it’s 12k, and then maybe you can get 5k in scholarships, etc. It’s like monopoly money. Then add in the college marketing campaigns, the vagaries of the financial aid process… it is really overwhelming.</p>
<p>Then think about grad school. I recently read a post (don’t have any idea where) that a student who will start med school next year has a COA of $78K. Unbelievable.</p>
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<p>Baylor still in the running? Did ya hear that, Cur? Now, we have a real possibility of a dozen Secret Service agents admiring Cur’s rutilant truck parked next to the presidential F-250 with extended cab in that Waco lot. </p>
<p>With a bit of luck, inside the library, one famous reader will study the US Tax Code with great attention while the other be looking at pictures of cattle and goats. Who is the first one? The Prez of Universitatis Confidentialae or the Prez of our small country? :)</p>
<p>xig, I run down the Prairie Chapel Road so fast on my bike I’m positive I’ve been a blip their radar screens many , many times. </p>
<p>It would be nice to have the library in Central Texas. Hey, money is money. ;)</p>
<p>Cur, I take it my husband’s mileage expenses will be added back in by Profile schools? That’s about all he really has as a business expense but it does add up, though not nearly as many miles as you have in Texas.</p>
<p>As I recall you had quite a variation in aid awards, was this due to differing interpretations of your business expenses and assets?</p>
<p>Some schools spit out a very doable EFC on their calculators for us. Williams for example is about $15,000 less than what the institutional methodology at finaid dot org comes up with. Of course the hard part is getting in, but I wonder if the school calculators are really how you’ll be treated. We’ve had big swings in income over the past year and now with the uncertainty of self-employment it’s tough to know what the future will hold. My oldest, who had previously been most disinterested in the whole college search, has now had the fires lit and is identifying schools of interest. She’s been fully aware of our up and down financial situation and I’m pushing the safety search, but I don’t want to say don’t apply if a school might come in as doable. But that might leave us in the omg, I got into my dream school and my freakin parents can’t pay because they think they need to heat the house this winter category.</p>
<p>My surrogate kid (not really mine, but I might as well be his mom) at a very top LAC regaled me with tales of how to shelter your income — apparently, that is quite the topic of discussion among some of his classmates. He, being more or less poor, was fascinated. He was excited as he told me how I could hide my assets — and I had to stop him, I was laughing so hard — I explained to him that the amount of money I would need to set up a trust fund is roughly equal to the amount of money I will never have! But hey … maybe if I’d known that stuff 30 years ago, I wouldn’t be worried about financial aid & there’d be no issues with swallows.</p>
<p>kelsmom: so what ways can you shelter income???</p>
<p>I would like to say that this is a very interesting thread. I can’t quite digest some of the nitty gritty, but no matter. What I don’t understand is the number of people applying to expensive schools when they really don’t have the money to go. I have to say that I must live in some kind of a bubble, but I don’t know anyone with a job who currently has a kid in a high price school that is not paying a ton for it. I am talking about average working people. This is so different from when I was in high school. So many parents in that time said go to State, its all we can afford.</p>
<p>DocT, his explanation had something to do with trust funds & avoiding taxes as a result. Basically, he had been assured that really rich people have lots of really cool ways to get out of paying taxes. Don’t ask me how true it all is. I have never had the good fortune of even having to entertain the thought. We folks here on this thread are more interested in possible (legal) ways to make our situation look better to the financial aid gods … but the people he was talking about don’t NEED financial aid gods … they can actually pay their tuition bills without crying! 
That sure sounds nice to me.</p>
<p>MomofFour, each school is different in the type of adjustments that they make to self employed income. The best thing to do is to write a detailed letter to the financial aid office to substantiate various expenses from the schedule C that they might add back in, if in fact there are specific reasons for higher expenses. They do tend to add back some or all of the claimed vehicle expenses; depreciation; travel expenses; meals & entertainment.</p>
<p>kelsom: This is of great interest to me as I have a trust fund. I can assure you that a number of schools ask for every detail of every kind of trust fund and assets held.</p>