HHI & Full Pay Threshold

[Anonymous]

What is the house hold income for which universities expect full pay? We make around $225,000 and have one child in early elementary school. Should I prepare (save) for full pay?

[Anonymous]

Yes. Go out and fill out a few NPCs as if your child were going to college today, and you'll see that you'll likely get nothing (assuming you own a home and have some savings).

[Anonymous]

You make at least $100k too much to get any kind of need-based aid.

[Anonymous]

None of what PPs said is remotely true. We make about what you do and have two kids; at an 80k a year SLAC the net price calculators have us getting around 30k in aid.

[Anonymous]

Ask instead what your EFC would be. My guess is around $50k.

[Anonymous]

NPC are more useful than EFC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NPC are more useful than EFC.

They’re basically the same

[Anonymous]

We make under $150k, and our EFC was around $42k. Many schools will include loans in that bracket, so NPC will be better. For most schools, I would think you'd get no aid. Maybe a few who use CSS, but I was surprised to read that PP got 30K w/ that income. I will admit we did far better than our EFC or NPC indicated (got into several CSS schools and used best offer to negotiate), but everyone's story is different.

[Anonymous]

If you’re already at $225k now and your kid won’t go to college for 10 years still then yeah, you will definitely be making too much to get any aid

[Anonymous]

We made about that when our children applied. We got zero from Fafsa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of what PPs said is remotely true. We make about what you do and have two kids; at an 80k a year SLAC the net price calculators have us getting around 30k in aid.

were both your kids at colleges at the same time when you got 30K aid?

[Anonymous]

Assets matter too.

Use Net Price Calculators.

[Anonymous]

Yes. You will be full pay unless your child qualifies for merit-based aid.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can't determine what you will pay by income alone. At some elite schools that don't consider home equity, an income of $200-250K may give some aid. Our income is $219K. For our family, Duke was a no-go, our EFC was $65K. He wanted to apply even though we checked the NPC, which ended up being accurate. But Stanford is $44K plus our son is expected to contribute $3K per year (no loans offered) for a total of $47K (EFC). We told him our cap was $45 per year for any school. Anything above that he would have to take out a subsidized Stafford loan ($5500), merit, and/or work PT. He got no financial aid from OOS public schools, only merit. He didn't apply to any public that wasn't known to give merit or was above $50K OOS/in-state.

We have 401ks, modest savings, stocks/investments under $20K, 529 to contribute $20K per year, and 500K+ home equity. We plan to cash flow for the remaining balance. We didn't start making more than $150K until he started 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Note that outside of maybe fifty schools, every other school gives merit aid. We’re full pay, DD was a B student at a private, and received merit aid at every school she was accepted- Loyola, Indiana, Oregon, and some LACs.