It’s probably worth pointing out that all of this financial gymnastics and (in my mind) questionable math will probably not lead to any substantial difference in aid. Except at the tippy top aid school, it might not even make a penny of aid difference.
Then DON’T let your son apply there. It is YOUR choice. If you don’t like the system then don’t play.
I don’t understand how everyone is resentful of a family trying to send their kid to the best school he can get into and present the most advantageous possible financial case. We’re not wealthy, I guarantee our standard of living is lower than most of you, how many of you live in 1200 sq ft? This IS the way the game is supposed to be played, not hobbling yourself at the start with naïve suppositions of how property is valued in the business world and defending the indefensible.
What naïve suppositions? I said it before and I’ll say it again: show me where the FAFSA or Profile instructions, or a credible financial aid officer working for a college or university, says to use something other than current fair market value in reporting an asset (taking into consideration debt against that asset), and you’ll be my hero.
No one is resentful of you trying to send your kid to the best school he can get into with the best possible financial aid. The problem is your whining about costs and a system that we all have to deal with, and in many cases have been dealing with for years already. Your situation is not unique.
Once more: no matter how much you try to “game” the system, it likely will not end up making that big of a difference in the end.
We all have to make choices within our budget. I promise, good students will do well no matter where they go.
Look,this isn’t an IRS process, by IRS rules. And OP needs to decide if we focus on housing values vis a vis the CSS Profile-- or how college costs have gotten out of hand.
It does help to start with the big picture. Colleges cost X an require Y and Z info for aid. Then process per their proprietary formulas. 800k of RE/assets at just under 6% is (call it) 50k, plus the % for income. 600k in RE(plus the rest) is 36k, min. Can OP afford the remaining 30k??? Could he afford $16k?
Or has he structured his own investments in a way which causes issues from the get-go.
And OP, having been on CC a long time and seen lots of scenarios and “hopes” re: aid, it’s not the need for aid that we are reacting to. Not the desire to do this in an advantageous way. It’s the idea any poster can manipulate things to his own purposes.
At this point, we don’t know your net worth in unprotected assets. You need to consider asking for Professional Judgment.
@Jellicus , I don’t understand why this in unconscionable. This chart of yours shows that publics are fighting hard to provide valuable educations to those that are cost-sensitive.
Should the Ivies and their peers charge less than they can, even if that meant providing less extraordinary experience WRT research, faculty, and facilities? Especially when they are usually need blind and the most generous with aid?
@s3 If you don’t use the whole screen name of the posters you are tagging then they won’t be notified - unless that is your point.
@Jellicus wrote
That’s how you know you’re not rich enough to apply ED-when you resent the schools that do it.
It is what it is. It doesn’t mean your kid won’t be successful, it just means you can’t swing with the big guys for undergrad.
This their game, by their rules, in their context. Yes, if you resent, it may be time to get off that bus.
That’s hard to hear. But we all want what’s “best” for our kids. And we learn that “you can;t always get what you want.” Many schools, btw, are as generous to ED/EA admits as to RD. With their myriad institutional needs, and the notion “meet full need” schools will do just that (altho, yes, per their own formulas and expectations,) no one can assert with certainty that Early is a rich family’s playground.
So go ahead and play with numbers, run the NPC with various inputs, etc. But I strongly suspect that, if questioned, you say, “Well, IRS allows this” or, “Some blog says that,” the FAOs will go ahead and make their adjustments. They are allowed to.
@lookingforward Thank you. Ultimately, it is the institution’s money and we can do as we see fit with it. We strive very hard to be as generous as possible but to do so in a manner that is both fair and equitable. We are always willing to listen to special circumstances but please don’t play games with the application. We believe me we have seen it before. As @BelknapPoint says just report fair market value and if you disagree tell us.
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I don’t understand how everyone is resentful of a family trying to send their kid to the best school he can get into and present the most advantageous possible financial case.
We’re not wealthy, I guarantee our standard of living is lower than most of you, how many of you live in 1200 sq ft?
This IS the way the game is supposed to be played, not hobbling yourself at the start with naïve suppositions of how property is valued in the business world and defending the indefensible.
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I’m not resentful at all. I don’t think many/any are here. If somehow your son’s schools do something that they haven’t done in the past and award you lots of aid, then SUPER!!!
BUT…We’re trying to tell you that CSS Profiles are likely going to assess your properties at an amount that you’re not going to like, and therefore you’re likely not going to get the aid you want.
Now…please tell us…what will you do in the spring if all of your son’s schools expect you to pay a lot more than you want to?
Will you “suck it up” and pay?
Will you sadly tell your son that the schools aren’t affordable and since he doesn’t have financial safeties he’ll have to go to his local CC?
What is the max amount that you’ll pay EACH year towards college?
Does your son have at least 3 financial safeties on his list? These would be schools that you know FOR SURE that you can afford because of ASSURED merit and/or low cost??
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Yes, we’re struggling with the implications of ED. I resent how it’s structured. As more schools admit more of their class ED, it makes the student body of the elite schools even more financially elite than they ever were and lowers the admission rate of the non ED students.
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Well, I would say that elite schools’ student bodies are or will become lopsided with a mix of low/modest income kids and affluent kids…unless more do what schools like HYPS are doing. Many $140kish families can’t pay $40k+ per year for college.
@Jellicus - The way that colleges, particularly Ivies, manage their tuition is disgusting, but ranting on a message board will not change it, and the only kind of aid that your kids will likely receive is merit aid. Here is a list of private schools that provide only “need” based aid and very little merit aid.
Boycott them, and concentrate on those schools that provide merit aid.
Amherst College, Amherst
Barnard College, New York
Baruch College of the City University of New York, New York
Bates College, Lewiston
Berea College, Berea
Boston College, Chestnut Hill
Brown University, Providence
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Colby College, Waterville
Colgate University, Hamilton
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester
Connecticut College, New London
Cornell University, Ithaca
Dartmouth College, Hanover
Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster
Georgetown University, Washington
Hamilton College, Clinton
Harvard University, Cambridge
Haverford College, Haverford
James Madison University, Harrisonburg
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Middlebury College, Middlebury
Pitzer College, Claremont
Pomona College, Claremont
Princeton University, Princeton
Reed College, Portland
Rutgers University — New Brunswick, Piscataway
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs
Spelman College, Atlanta
Stanford University, Stanford
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore
Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula
Tufts University, Medford
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie
Wellesley College, Wellesley
Wesleyan University, Middletown
West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester
Williams College, Williamstown
Yale University, New Haven
Wow.
For my edification, how would a school who takes students almost exclusively from the top %5 of students nationwide give merit aid?
For those followng FA issues, interesting page giving some glimpse into the analytical workings https://professionals.collegeboard.org/higher-ed/financial-aid/im/tips.
There is also info online regarding adjusting inputs downward. One is https://ifap.ed.gov/sfadepot/attachments/ses17.pdf And a little bit from finaid.org abut negotiations. http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/negotiation.phtml
I don’t think any of us can say often enough: there is a lot written about this, a lot to find, review and process. Going on any one article may not be on target. And, the power rests in the hands of the FAOs. As bsschooltotech said, their money.
Ivy equivalents such as Chicago, Northwestern, WashU, Notre Dame, Rice, Duke, Vanderbilt, and Emory among others provide merit aid. These schools have equally strong student bodies as the non-merit aid schools.
No, it is my money that they want to take, and I have no intention of giving it to a school that wants to treat my savings like a piggy bank so they can fulfill their social justice fantasies.
“Ivy equivalents such as Chicago, Northwestern, WashU, Notre Dame, Rice, Duke, Vanderbilt, and Emory among others provide merit aid. These schools have equally strong student bodies as the non-merit aid schools.”
I don’t believe that is true, if you look at stats such as SAT scores.
I just want to clarify that the only reason I commented about the reprehensible tuitions was that I was being accused of “unfairly” wanting to keep our hard earned income and assets rather than just turn them over to a University.
This system is corrupt and trying to optimize our data is the only responsible action. Imagine if all cars had a list price of a quarter of a million dollars and you have to show your tax returns to negotiate a reasonable price!
So many commenters also seem to think that we’re complete idiots and don’t have plans for safe schools and state schools with merit etc as I said already that we did. Don’t know why asking technical questions about property valuation leads people to believe we don’t know the first thing about college application. My wife and I were lucky enough to attend excellent private universities at a time when they cost 1/6 of today.
I used a similar car analogy about six months ago in a financial aid discussion, so I understand where you’re coming from. In my case it was you don’t get to know the price of the car until you show them your tax returns, and then they tell you what you’ll be paying for the car.
However, nobody is holding a gun to your head and telling you to pony up the money, and there are other excellent schools out there that won’t take you for a ride financially.
It is only your insistence that the elite schools should be required to give you a good deal that is rubbing people the wrong way.
I don’t think you (or any parents) get to make the rules, unfortunately. It’s the elites’ game, it’s their football, and they can play with whom they’d like. Getting mad about it is pointless and probably bad for your health.