I understand that – I had similar complications.
I am self-employed in a free-lance occupation. For purposes of CC, “consultant” would adequately describe what I do. I work for hire for a small number of clients, who pay me as an independent contractor. Between 10-15% of my income goes to expenses. I file a schedule C. The CSS profile asked questions about the value of my business assets, which are negligible. (I have basic office equipment and supplies, nothing special). But my son’s college insisted on assigning a higher asset value to my business identical to my previous year’s net income. In other words, if my income was $35K they added in an asset value of $35K – which made no sense at all, given that I can’t retire and sell a clone of myself for $35K. Without me, my sole/freelancer worth is -0-. But no amount of persuasion could change the college’s view.
But in the end, the grant aid is the college’s money. Despite that inane declaration that my self was an “asset” valued based on my prior year earnings, that particular college was more generous than others with grant money.
I live in an area where housing prices are insanely high, and my daughter’s college chose to use a method of valuation that worked in our favor. Another 100% need college offered much less in aid. I didn’t follow through because the one with the better aid package was also the preferred school, but I can guess that the difference in awards might stem simply from different practices in valuing and weighing home equity. But again the point is --huge variation in practices.
I think when relying on need-based aid, parents need to make sure at the outset that the student understand the family budget limitations; and that there is no such thing as a “dream” college. Just, hopefully, an affordable college – which may be something rather far down on the student’s preference list. But that is what it is. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Again - I’ve been in your position. My son was accepted to his 1st choice college which promised to meet 100% need to some, but not all, admitted students. So we were greeted with an admissions packet that said that they had determined my son to be eligible for grant aid, but were out of funds, so nothing but loans & work-study. They offered to put my son on a waitlist for aid, and encouraged us to double deposit. We said no. (And that is what is meant by the phrase “admit-deny” - that college financial aid office was even able give us a ballpark estimate of what the aid would have been, if the funds had been available – roughly 50% the overall COA at the time).
My DD was inane enough to think NYU was her top choice, and I think you can figure out how that worked out. At least NYU doesn’t pretend to meet full need. So there was kid #2, big fat admission packet and welcome letter in hand… along with token aid.
My financial situation is complicated enough that I didn’t have any illusions that the FAFSA EFC would be met by any school … but the point is, even though it’s frustrating – we were still in the position of depending on the college to give us money. It’s a gift (or a discount), not an entitlement.
Frustrating yes. But the vast majority of college bound seniors probably aren’t fortunate enough to qualify for the level of support we got; my kids had other choices. They still had to borrow and I still had to borrow, but they were given the opportunity to attend good colleges when they had high school classmates with no choice other than to attend the local community college. So in my view, this was a time to count our blessings and move on.