<p>Apparently my son’s school’s financial aid office decided to ignore the number I put down and use a much higher one they had computed (assuming that our home had appreciated since 2005 which it definitely has not). I was able to send a tax assessment and comparative market analysis from a local real estate agent to document the lower value, and they increased our aid as a result. So… if your house value is quite different than the federal calculator predicts, you might want to check with the school(s) in question and make sure they are using a realistic value, and provide whatever evidence you can to back it up. (There have been so few sales recently in our area, that neither Zillow nor Trulia has an estimate for our home.)</p>