<p>mercymom,</p>
<p>"but if you do this and STILL you can’t afford your efc w/o mtging your house &/or taking out a plain old bank loan to pay your efc, then something is wrong with the picture. "</p>
<p>If, as you conjucture, I can’t read, perhaps I misinterpreted the institutional methodology used to determine Chicago’s finaid policy. As I understand it, assets (including home equity, investments, etc) are included in the calculation. If a family has many assets, the institutional EFC is going to be higher. It is assumed that you will be paying from current income and savings - either in the form of money in a bank account or in investments/home equity. This is all quite well-defined, and should not be coming as a big surprise with some research. We didn’t save enough (assumed son would be attending Case on his father’s tuition benefit - silly us!), so about 1/3 of our EFC comes from our home equity line. </p>
<p>Some of the other colleges are offering financial aid packages that may be better for a particular situation. That’s fine. Selecting a college involves a good many parameters - including student’s needs and parent’s philosophy and financial situation. You made one choice, your friends, another.</p>