Excluding Real Estate Equity for EFC Calculation

twoinanddone
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 06:44:15 +0000

edl1016:

Those parents that have wasted their money buying toys get off scot-free while those that manage their money well are heavily penalized.

Other parents could argue that while they were putting their savings into restrictive retirement accounts or saving for their kids’ college costs in 529 accounts, you were putting yours into real estate, making much larger returns than they were in their savings vehicles. You also got some tax breaks for the rental property they didn’t receive.

The college financial aid formulas are unfair to some and greatly favor others. Farmers get hit hard because the land has great value but it isn’t liquid. I think you’ll find a lot of farmers’ kids going to their state schools (Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa) because that what they can afford with liquid assets. I felt the system was unfair to me as a single parent of two kids in school at the same time. The savings allotment for my family of 3 (one adult) was $10k and a two parent/one child family of 3 got about $50-60k (depending on the age of the parent). That made no sense to me but those were the rules.

Parents can claim that they make more money in the markets and would rather invest than save in a 401k. They are welcomed to do that but then it is not an excluded retirement account and they have to report it as an asset.