<p>Update and Correction from Yale--- Home equity is indeed included but it may seem low to me because of the asset caps, etc...For folks, info from Yale newspaper:</p>
<p>YALE OVERHAULS FINANCIAL AID; REFORM TARGETS MIDDLE CLASS
10-percent contribution expected from families making $120K to $200K
published Tuesday, January 15, 2008</p>
<p>Following sweeping financial-aid reforms announced Monday, the University will dramatically reduce the cost of a Yale College education for families making under $200,000. </p>
<p>Yale's new plan, made public just over a month after Harvard University unexpectedly unveiled an overhaul of its own financial-aid policies, bears the imprint of Harvard's revamped aid portfolio. The expected contributions from families in income brackets up to $180,000 are identical to those laid out by Harvard, and like Harvard, Yale will eliminate student loans from aid packages beginning next year. </p>
<p>But Yale will allow families making between $120,000 and $200,000 to contribute 10 percent of their income on average toward tuition, while Harvard limited the average 10-percent contribution to families making up to $180,000 in its December announcement.
Initial student reaction to the announcement was overwhelmingly positive. Out of more than four dozen students who responded to a News e-mail survey yesterday, nearly all were at least somewhat supportive of the changes. </p>
<p>Like their Harvard counterparts, Yale families earning less than $60,000 annually will not be asked to contribute anything to their children's tuition, while families making between $60,000 and $120,000 will contribute up to 10 percent of their total income.
"The idea is to make a significant impact on the questions of accessibility and affordability," University President Richard Levin said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. "[We want] to make a change that's truly felt by a wide range of families, that both helps our existing students and helps us attract more students whose families need our support." </p>
<p>Yale will also reduce the amount that students are expected to contribute from their own earnings each year to $2,500, from $4,400. Students will be able to earn this by working on campus for about seven hours a week, according to a University press release. ...</p>
<p>Yale will also tie its increase in tuition, room and board charges next year to the expected level of consumer price inflation, 2.2 percent, according to the statement. For the past few years, Yale has increased these costs by about 5 percent a year.
For the 2007-'08 school year, tuition, room and board total $45,000. </p>
<p>Yale will continue to consider home equity in financial-aid calculations, despite the fact that both Harvard and Princeton University do not. But Yale announced that it will exempt up to $200,000 of a family's assets — which could include home equity as well as other investments — from aid calculations starting next year, reducing the expected parental contribution. </p>
<p>When asked why he decided against eliminating home equity from Yale's need calculations, Levin replied, "Because you have a president who's an economist."
Excluding home equity might encourage families to cheat the system, Levin said. Those families could invest liquid savings in real estate or use them to pay off a mortgage, which would eliminate those funds from consideration and increase financial-aid awards as a result, he said. ....</p>
<p>Yale last altered its financial-aid policies in 2005, when the University eliminated the parental contribution for families making less than $45,000 and reduced contributions for families making between $45,000 and $60,000. </p>
<p>-Samuel Breidbart contributed reporting.</p>