Reply to When the reality of college cost hits. Cannot do dream school.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't believe you[/quote]

This is an odd post.[/quote]

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k.  I just don't.  [/quote]

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.[/quote]

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.[/quote]

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?[/quote]

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.[/quote]

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary. [/quote]

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.[/quote]

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids. [/quote]

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not  that close.[/quote]

Agree there are large missing assets to this story. Or. OP is a troll. 
[/quote]

I stated explicitly in my original post that my sister has a good deal of home equity but it's not about to sell her long time home to send her child to college. I think we can all agree that the middle class gets screwed in this process. Several other teachers have commented here in similar situations. You make too much for meaningful aid but not nearly enough that you can afford such a huge sticker price. And people should not have to sell their houses to send their kids to college. Which my sister is not going to do. My niece will probably end up at her state flagship and be fine. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't stink to have to tell your child that you cannot afford their dream college after they work their butt off for years and years. Can't we all agree on that? [/quote]

OP, what posters are reacting negatively to is not that your sister won’t sell her house, but that there must be more to the story. I and other families have been through this process with selective, needs blind schools, and a family making $200k with little or no assets outside of retirement accounts and home equity are not asked to pay full freight. Period. That means there must be a ton of home equity - like $1 million+ — non-retirement savings, 529 plans, etc. Why don’t you share the whole story? Or, maybe your sister is withholding important facts from you. Tell her you ran the NPC calculator and their story doesn’t add up. [/quote]

They weren’t asked to pay full freight. They got modest aid. Not enough. It’s plausible that a family in a HCOL area bought a modest, 400k cape cod in 2000 and it’s now worth a million.

If for Cornell, you put in the net price calculator 750k in home equity, 160k across all three kids’ 529s (which is akin to having invested less than $250 per month for 18 years) with no other investments, and 225k in household income, you’ll get almost exactly the EFC that OP described. [/quote]

If you’re saying $160k per kid then you can probably find a way to swing $75k per year for the first.

If you’re saying $160k total I ran that exact scenario you described and the cost was only $47k, which is almost $30k off from what OP described.[/quote]

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