At what HHI level do you not receive financial aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, is financial aid only given at private universities with a large endowment? Such as Harvard?

Harvard is different. Use their NPC.

Harvard and a small number of schools with very, very large endowments are able to give financial aid to all students who qualify in the form of grants.

Harvard, the Ivies, and extremely selective universities and SLACs do not give merit scholarships, just financial aid.

+1

The NPC makes Harvard unaffordable for us (HHI $225K). Too bad, because our DC is qualified.

Should've saved.

I'm a liberal democrat. I want to spend my money on fun stuff like travel and eating well and have other people pay for my kids' college.

That's why I voted for Bernie. FRaeeE everything!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question. Do they only look at income when determining financial aid?

What stops someone 50 years old and HHI $250k with say 3-4 kids and net worth of $2 million (not too much, not too little) from quitting their job so that HHI is $0 and getting lots of ginancial aid for all theor kids? In this hypothetical scenario, it would make sense vs. working and shelling out 100k or more a year on tuition. Thoughts?

You have to do it two years before your child gets to college. FAFSA for next fall are based on 2015 returns.

From the Forbes article.

Students who are high school seniors this coming fall (2017) will be able to apply for financial aid for their freshman (academic) year of college in 2018-2019 by submitting the FAFSA in October 2017 using income tax information from their parents' 2016 tax returns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^
You don't know the specifics of my situation and you don't know what you are talking about. We have a mortgage on one home, drive 10yo cars, and have never taken our kids abroad on vacation. There are a lot of people like us in this area. $225K in DC is not the same as $225K in Tulsa, but the EFC calculator does not take that into account.

Tuition increases make affording school a huge problem for the vast majority of people, even the upper middle class.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-r-cole/misc...ptions-about-the_b_779444.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/college-t...h-median-income_n_5505653.html

Scroll down this piece to college tuition:

http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-2014-inf...014-data-housing-cars-college/

Exactly. Any movement to get them to put in cost differentials for different cities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
You don't know the specifics of my situation and you don't know what you are talking about. We have a mortgage on one home, drive 10yo cars, and have never taken our kids abroad on vacation. There are a lot of people like us in this area. $225K in DC is not the same as $225K in Tulsa, but the EFC calculator does not take that into account.

Tuition increases make affording school a huge problem for the vast majority of people, even the upper middle class.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-r-cole/misc...ptions-about-the_b_779444.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/college-t...h-median-income_n_5505653.html

Scroll down this piece to college tuition:

http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-2014-inf...014-data-housing-cars-college/

Exactly. Any movement to get them to put in cost differentials for different cities?

Why should they? We lived in DC and then left. My dh then had an offer to move back to DC. The housing costs were out of control. The salary may have been slightly higher in DC, but not enough to justify blowing the budget on housing. We stayed put in an area with reasonable housing costs. Living in an area that has a high cost for housing is a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, is financial aid only given at private universities with a large endowment? Such as Harvard?

Harvard is different. Use their NPC.

Harvard and a small number of schools with very, very large endowments are able to give financial aid to all students who qualify in the form of grants.

Harvard, the Ivies, and extremely selective universities and SLACs do not give merit scholarships, just financial aid.

right, and those who qualify are all under $120K or so (I'm not sure of the exact number but it's around this). There's no way your'e getting a dime on a $200K DC income.
And there's no merit aid.

Nor should you. $200K is a lot of money.

Hahahah , what year 1985? Idiot

[Anonymous]

I keep reading in articles that the biggest mistake in FAFSA is not filling it out because you think you won't get anything. So at hhi $300k, should I bother filling it out or is it a big waste of time?

[Anonymous]

I did it with similar hhi mostly to know whether it makes a difference. You never know how it works unless you participate! Also we have 3 kids and there is a good chance that all 3 will be in college at the same time so i think it will matter then. I have not the CSS profile - waiting to see what schools DD gets into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading in articles that the biggest mistake in FAFSA is not filling it out because you think you won't get anything. So at hhi $300k, should I bother filling it out or is it a big waste of time?

I was in a similar position. I filled it out in about 30-45 minutes. Most of the data is imported from the IRS so I didn't have to hand jam a bunch of numbers. EFC was $113K. If/when I have two kids at private, it would be worth filling out CSS Profile. That's what doing the FAFSA now told me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, is financial aid only given at private universities with a large endowment? Such as Harvard?

Harvard is different. Use their NPC.

Harvard and a small number of schools with very, very large endowments are able to give financial aid to all students who qualify in the form of grants.

Harvard, the Ivies, and extremely selective universities and SLACs do not give merit scholarships, just financial aid.

+1

The NPC makes Harvard unaffordable for us (HHI $225K). Too bad, because our DC is qualified.

Qualified is all very well, but getting in is quite different: it becomes a lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, is financial aid only given at private universities with a large endowment? Such as Harvard?

Harvard is different. Use their NPC.

Harvard and a small number of schools with very, very large endowments are able to give financial aid to all students who qualify in the form of grants.

Harvard, the Ivies, and extremely selective universities and SLACs do not give merit scholarships, just financial aid.

+1

The NPC makes Harvard unaffordable for us (HHI $225K). Too bad, because our DC is qualified.

Qualified is all very well, but getting in is quite different: it becomes a lottery.

Harvard is a pure lottery at any level of qualification. Unless maybe if you're the president's child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading in articles that the biggest mistake in FAFSA is not filling it out because you think you won't get anything. So at hhi $300k, should I bother filling it out or is it a big waste of time?

"the bad news is that some colleges (admittedly not many) do require the FAFSA for all scholarships, whether need-based or not, so you have to dig around on college Web sites and read all the fine print to make sure that your son’s target schools aren’t on that list."

http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/fafsa-required-for-merit-aid-hopeful/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind, most schools do not meet your EFC or include loans within the EFC.

This is our experience. We have two kids in college, and we received no FA, even though our EFC indicated we ought to get some. DC got merit aid from all the schools, so that was something, but FA was a total bust. They offered $5,500 annual unsubsidized loans to our kid. Yea. Even with the loans, they did not meet our EFC. This was from the private colleges, after filling out the FAFSA and CSS Profile. Not a bit of FA, which surprised us. DC is going in-state, only thing we can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep reading in articles that the biggest mistake in FAFSA is not filling it out because you think you won't get anything. So at hhi $300k, should I bother filling it out or is it a big waste of time?

"the bad news is that some colleges (admittedly not many) do require the FAFSA for all scholarships, whether need-based or not, so you have to dig around on college Web sites and read all the fine print to make sure that your son’s target schools aren’t on that list."

http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/fafsa-required-for-merit-aid-hopeful/

We filled it out for all schools. DC got merit aid at all schools. DC did not apply to selective colleges that don't offer merit. We chose only colleges that offer merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, is financial aid only given at private universities with a large endowment? Such as Harvard?

Harvard is different. Use their NPC.

Harvard and a small number of schools with very, very large endowments are able to give financial aid to all students who qualify in the form of grants.

Harvard, the Ivies, and extremely selective universities and SLACs do not give merit scholarships, just financial aid.

right, and those who qualify are all under $120K or so (I'm not sure of the exact number but it's around this). There's no way your'e getting a dime on a $200K DC income.
And there's no merit aid.

Nor should you. $200K is a lot of money.

Hahahah , what year 1985? Idiot

If only. We know lots of families, like ours, living on a gross total of $75K or less in the DC area. (Before they take out for taxes, health insurance, etc.) Wages are still stuck in 1985 for a lot of us, with 2017-level cost of living.

[Anonymous]

You could get divorced. The FAFSA only takes into account the financial information of the custodial parent if he if she has more than 50% custody. It annoys me that my sister's kids gets financial aid even though her much wealthier ex pays the college bill, but those are the rules.