<p>Our student recently spent most of his savings to buy a car, so has little to declare as assets...however, his younger sibling has a sizeable savings in his account UTMA, which will one day be used to buy him a car. The CSS Profile asks about sibling assets...how will this affect our current student's chances for financial aid...why do they care how much money the sibling has?</p>
<p>If sibling has $500,000 in his own name, you don't need to save to pay his way through college. I thought cars didn't have to be declared, though.</p>
<p>I don't think my question was clear. If the younger sibling has 10,000 in the bank, will those assets affect our current student's financial aid chances...the money is the child's not the parents money.</p>
<p>Right, but that is money you don't have to save for younger kid...I don't know what percentage of that if any they think should be for his college...it sounds like 10,000 in sibs name will have very minimal effect- parents assets are assessed at about 5% so it couldn't be more than that...I just used $500,000 as the obvious example of a family who does not need to save for college for the second child who has that much in his own name.</p>
<p>Reread that profile question, it USED to say something about PARENT assets under siblings name- so if it was really DS2s summer job savings and not YOUR money saved in his name, i think you would not count it??</p>
<p>The question is described by these directions...what do you think? Is somemom right? </p>
<ol>
<li>Include funds in custodial accounts or other savings and investment
accounts held in the names of the student’s siblings, half-siblings, and
step-siblings who are under age 19 and not enrolled in college. Do not
include funds held in Section 529 college savings or prepaid tuition plans.
Include these in question 39.</li>
</ol>
<p>OK - so the way I see it, is to hide your assets in a sibling's car. Go to Barrett Jackson and buy a literal investment vehicle and register it in the name of a sibling.</p>
<p>Doesn't CSS/Profile ask about student cars, though, so when sib goes to apply for FA, sib has car.</p>
<p>CSS does ask for all car information. When I listed the four cars my DH, my own and the two cars WE provide both college drivers, I also identified the respective name on each Title and/or Lease.</p>
<p>The CSS profile asks for sibling's assets because families were trying to hide assets by putting them in a younger sibling's name. However, I'm not certain how much if it affects financial aid. We are basically in the same situation. Older son used his savings to buy a car, and my two younger children have about $2500 each in the bank which will they contine to add to to buy a car, while my older one has almost nothing left in his account.</p>
<p>Unless the Profile's different this year (we haven't done it yet), it customizes some questions depending on the school you're applying to, and sends the responses to certain questions only to the schools that request it. Last year, none of d's schools asked about cars - not ours, not d's. So it's really hard to answer specific Profile questions across the board.</p>
<p>Yup, the CSS Profile didn't ask us anything at all about cars either.</p>