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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just played around with the SSS form, because my sense was that we make too much to qualify for aid, but we were having a hard time figuring out how to responsibly budget for our favorite school. I have a low-cost house (under 200k) and income at about 200k. One kid. However, student loan debt and consumer debts are high, and we're just a few years out of school so we haven't had a chance to get out in front of these debts. So, our income is high but we're encumbered more than we'd like and just beginning with savings / retirement.

Bad news for me: The SSS analysis came back saying we can pay about 38k in their estimation -- which is a lot more than I feel comfortable budgeting. I have no idea if restructuring the debt would change the SSS analysis (it might give us some more liquidity, to get closer to the mark), or if explaining that the consumer debt is related to projects on the fixer-upper house would meet with some sympathy. But I suspect that the disjuncture between the estimate and what I feel I can wisely pay is simply a sign that we're not financially prepared, at least not yet. We'll probably just go to ground and work on the debt problem for a few years.

But maybe there's good news here for someone else: If you have two kids, or your house costs more, it seems possible that the SSS formula (and the related ones) will see you has having some demonstrated need. [/quote]

This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't really understand giving FA to people because they have consumer debt. A mortgage is different. We have one in private and 2 in public. Zero debt except for mortgage, $150 income and we get $7000 in FA. We truly can't pay that bill without grandparent help. If we made another $50k, most of that could go towards school and we'd be golden. We don't expect FA to supplement our lifestyle. We expect to make sacrifices to pay our bill. No fancy cars, small house, only very basic vacations (we drive to the beach), etc.

We are so grateful for any FA we receive. [/quote]

Author of the quoted post here: no, it doesn't surprise me either. The only reason I checked is because we had decided not to apply. But I wanted to check to before making that decision final.

Financial aid aside, the prior poster is correct that we I should roll the debt we acquired fixing up the house into the mortgage. I have some mental resistance to doing so because I like the lien against my house small. But it would be more sensible.

As an aside, I agree about subsidizing "lifestyle." Our situation is parallel to yours: we drive to visit family each year (across the country) on vacation; we have one car for commuting; we bought a very inexpensive house that needed work, and we commute over an hour to work.  My parents definitely cannot contribute to tuition; they will probably need our help before very long.  Our real problem honestly isn't the tuition bill itself: it's that we all need aftercare, summer programs, and some way to respond to emergencies. We don't have family in the area, so we don't have any backup.

All of this limits what we can do right now. Which is OK. We all size up what our situations are and making trade-offs.
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