<p>I was wondering if colleges can verify how much is in our checking/saving accounts. Is it a good idea to withdraw most of our money? I currently only have like 2k anyway but will they expect me to pay all that for my tuition? Like would the amount of $$ in my accounts have a big impact on my EFC?</p>
<p>On any given day every person’s actual CHECKING account will be much higher/lower. That’s a variable you can’t plan for. Your savings is another matter. You have to report interest earned on savings income. If you then say you have no savings, what do you think that will say to FAFSA? I don’t know how much they expect you to pay; maybe you can use the estimator and play with the numbers to see. I know that my D has only about $50 in cash plus a $150 savings account I started for her long long ago. When I enter that amount in the estimator, I THINK they ask her to pay 1/4 to 1/5 of it. So I assume it will take that amount each year, for whatever you have on hand.</p>
<p>lakerforever24, you are supposed to report the amount of money you have. Withdrawing the money and pretending you don’t have it would be, well - no other way to say it - lying. Unfortunately people do that all the time. The folks in financial aid and FAFSA processing are aware of that and have indeed figured out ways to verify that information. One way they keep track is the banks report interest earned on your accounts to the IRS and that information is also requested on the FAFSA. If you earned significant interest on an account that you say has only 97 cents in it, they will be fully aware that the account usually holds far more money.</p>
<p>What if you withdrew your savings and paid off your house. Then it would not be savings. Would that help? I didn’t see anywhere where you could reduce you savings by your debt?</p>
<p>$2,000 is not likely to make any significant difference in your financial aid. If you had like $150,000 in your accounts that’s a different story - but $2,000? That could be a paycheck. It’s not a big deal and I wouldn’t even bother to withdraw it.</p>
<p>You could, theoretically, withdraw your savings and pay off your house. However, this is probably not a good idea, because then those funds would not be liquid, and most people have savings accounts so they can have access to liquid assets in case of an emergency or whatever. In general, most of the ways I’ve seen that people propose to “hide” their money generally aren’t good ways to hide it. Besides, why would you want to hide it? Those are funds that can pay for your schooling! You ARE responsible for paying for your own/your children’s own education.</p>
<p>$2000 is not going to make a huge difference. There is asset protection for the parents and it exceeds $2000.</p>
<p>You can buy groceries and pay rent before you answer the question. That’s fair.
Don’t try to “rip off” or “hide” your situation from financial aid or the IRS. Believe me, they have seen a million cases of it and they know tricks and twists that you think are clever but are as clear as day to them (and part of their training to spot). </p>
<p>Be honest. Be on time. Be complete. Let some other applicant be dishonest and evasive. Guess who is going to get financial aid help then?</p>