CSS Non-custodial profile impact on EFC

cptofthehouse
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:51:09 +0000

What folks don’t often understand is that colleges can do what they please with their own funds. They don’t have to be fair and they are not. They ''buy" the students they most want. For pragmatic reasons, they have guidelines for dispensing financial aid, but they do not have to stick with them, even on a student to student basis. They may ignore 401K funds for one family, but count them for another, if, for example, the numbers are high enough that they feel those funds should be in the picture. They can take into account a parent recently losing a job, or they can just ignore it.

That is why your instituional EFC can vary so much from school to school. When you throw in a situation such as remarriage and steps, it can get to be so complicated that each case may have its own exceptions. It makes sense if a parent marries a “Trump” type of person, that his assets are going to be heavily counted. If the step parent is more middle income with a slew of responsibilities of his own, including his own kids in college, than accomodation can be made for that.