Am I doing NPC wrong? Shows decent $$

[Anonymous]

Curious if the changes to the federal aid system in the BBB change any numbers and/or of calculators have been updated.

[Anonymous]

I am surprised they are not expecting OP to empty out the $400K pile they have saved for college first?

How does this work with twins, where you won’t know how much you are paying bc they are both applying at the same time?

How does it work if you are supporting another child in grad school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP - 400k does not include retirement funds. It is, in fact, $$ for college. I’m going to do npc again, from scratch, today.
Also wondered that Fafsa asked specifically how much we pay for each kid already in college while npc just asks what type of college. One kid has full ride, which is not captured by npc. Will schools look at Fafsa and discount? Or do they just look at npc? Anyone know?

Schools that give serious money use the College Board’s CSS profile, which is much more detailed than either the FAFSA or the net price calculator, and will likely capture the actual amount you are spending at the other college.

My understanding is the CSS takes a fairly blunt approach to this, by discounting your contribution by a certain percentage for each additional child in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am surprised they are not expecting OP to empty out the $400K pile they have saved for college first?

How does this work with twins, where you won’t know how much you are paying bc they are both applying at the same time?

How does it work if you are supporting another child in grad school?

They generally only count 5% of the parents’ assets toward the SAI. The income would be the bigger impact but with multiple kids in college it is likely not high enough to be full pay (at least while the kids are all in college at the same time).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP - 400k does not include retirement funds. It is, in fact, $$ for college. I’m going to do npc again, from scratch, today.
Also wondered that Fafsa asked specifically how much we pay for each kid already in college while npc just asks what type of college. One kid has full ride, which is not captured by npc. Will schools look at Fafsa and discount? Or do they just look at npc? Anyone know?

Schools that give serious money use the College Board’s CSS profile, which is much more detailed than either the FAFSA or the net price calculator, and will likely capture the actual amount you are spending at the other college.

My kid got serious money from a school that only required FAFSA. I guess because I don’t make much money and have no other assets, it’s easy to see I have nothing.

[Anonymous]

Just an update. Ran NPC at multiple schools with 3 kids in college, 2 kids in college, just 1 kid.
Most generous schools seem to give $20-$25k/ kid at income of $310k. At $440k and just 2 kids in school, only getting $4-15k. Getting nothing with only 1 kid.

Did not matter whether I noted other kids were in private or public universities.

Very useful exercise- thanks for everyone’s suggestions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just an update. Ran NPC at multiple schools with 3 kids in college, 2 kids in college, just 1 kid.
Most generous schools seem to give $20-$25k/ kid at income of $310k. At $440k and just 2 kids in school, only getting $4-15k. Getting nothing with only 1 kid.

Did not matter whether I noted other kids were in private or public universities.

Very useful exercise- thanks for everyone’s suggestions

Even more questions:
1) You got $20-25K per kid running the numbers with how many in college?
2) What was your actual income?
3) Why did you change your income so much when calculating? Just to see the difference?

How does fluctuating self-employment factor in? Like a side hustle that can ebb and flow?

[Anonymous]

Changed salary bc job change/raise. Income going from $330 to $410.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Changed salary bc job change/raise. Income going from $330 to $410.

Just to reiterate a point made above, schools are no longer required to take multiple kids in college into account when awarding financial aid. Each school‘s financial aid formula will deal with this situation differently.

Also, generally 529 funds have to be drained before financial aid is considered. If you look online, you can find information about how different types of assets/income/savings are treated by financial aid formulas. (again with some variation between schools.)

Barring multiple kids in college, the general rule is that financial aid is usually available only up to an income of around 250 K.