<p>dumbparent, I haven’t read every post, but I wanted to give you my perspective. When my oldest child wanted to go to CMU, we received almost no financial aid. Our income and assets were both less than yours, but we were probably still in the same boat. I felt sort of angry and resentful, too. The kid worked so hard to be the best and we saved as much as we possibly could. We made a reasonable comfortable middle-class life and were told that we should be able to afford to spend half of our take-home pay on tuition. Just not possible. That child went to a state school and was very happy and successful there. </p>
<p>Fast forward three years. My husband died. I lost my job. Then we really had no income, so the second child got more financial aid and my EFC is lower. Still, amazingly, the EFC is now about 2/3 of my AGI. Although my 2nd kid got more financial aid, I am worse off than I was before! Trust me, I have no disposable income and am lucky to meet my monthly expenses. So, the moral of the story is this: don’t be too angry about the financial aid system, because you could be worse off than you are.</p>