<p>My daughter would like to apply for Merit scholarships? I currently own my home and wanted to know if I sold the house, moved into an apartment, would that put her in a better position for awards?</p>
<p>Merit scholarships are not contingent upon family finances, so selling your house won’t make any difference at all. Your daughter’s grades and test scores, and her competitive position within the particular college’s applicant pool, will be the primary determinants of merit aid. </p>
<p>If your D is seeking financial aid only (not merit), I don’t think you ought to do anything that will endanger your own financial security in order to garner a few more bucks in aid. It will not be worth it. Financial aid is largely based on last year’s annual income anyway, not assets.</p>
<p>There is a clearly written book, “Paying for College Without Going Broke,” by Kalman Chany, that contains a good overview of the financial aid process.</p>
<p>Merit scholarships are based on “merit”, not on your financial need. So it would not make one bit of difference. It is her test scores, grades, extra curriculars, interview skills, etc. that will likely make the biggest difference. Most of the largest merit awards are offered by the colleges themselves, so you need to look at each school she is interested in and see what merit scholarships they offer. As a general rule, the higher her statistics are relative to the pool of applicants, the more likely she is to get merit at schools that do offer it.</p>
<p>Regarding the impact on “need based aid”, it depends on whether the colleges she is applying to are “FAFSA only”, or if they use the CSS Profile or their own forms to gather additional financial aid info. Assuming you make some money on the sale of the house and have that in some kind of account or investment, I think you could be worse off if you sold the house at a FAFSA-only school (they don’t look at house equity, but do look at savings/investments). Some CSS Profile schools look at your house equity anyway, so it wouldn’t make much difference.</p>
<p>Just a quick reaction to your premise: If you sold your house you would, presumably, have more money in the bank and it would LOOK like you had more significant assets than you actually have. Believe the family home is not considered an asset for the FAFSA but $$ in the bank is an asset. Application for need-based aid and merit aid are obviously evaluated/awarded based on different criteria.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for tha!</p>
<p>Beil nailed it. If you have a big hunk of money in the bank that will count against you much more than owning a house.</p>
<p>You might want to head over to the financial aid section of this forum.</p>
<p>That being said…the FAFSA does not take your primary residence into consideration at all…no info about it is included on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>If your daughter applies to schools using the CSS Profile, the equity in your primary residence is listed. Schools use this amount to a greater or lesser degree. BUT money in your bank account would likely be viewed as more liquid and accessible than a mortgaged house!</p>
<p>And as mentioned…merit aid is based on your kiddo’s stats, not on your finances.</p>
<p>Put financial/merit aid aside。 There are ppl sold their home in 2007 and bought back houses in 2011 made a lot of money. But who would have 20/20 visions for the housing prices?</p>
<p>Whether or not selling your house will impact need-based financial aid will depend on what other assets you have, and how much house equity you have. There is an asset protection allowance for FAFSA that is based on your age and marital status. Without more information we can’t say what will be the case.</p>
<p>However, many merit scholarships that also have a financial need component. I remember that a lot of the non-school merit scholarships we looked at were also need-based. And some school-based merit scholarships are need-based as well.</p>
<p>If by trading house equity for money in the bank you increase the amount of assets you have over the limit, you could be hurting her chances for merit aid as well.</p>