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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So income factors into this highly, but what about expenses? Lets say your income is substantial, your house is worth 1 mil or more, but you have little equity in the house and a high mortgage payment. You also have car payments for expensive, newer model cars. And a lake or beach house (also mortgaged).  Compare that to a family with the same income with a modest house that is paid off, so no mortgage payment, and no car payments, either, because they have older cars that are also paid off.  The first family demonstrates more need on paper so likely has less EFC but lives much "larger" by choice than family #2.   [/quote]

[b]Just look at the FAFSA formulas, it does not ask about monthly expenses, so, no.[/b]  For CSS the questions re real estate are purchase price and date, current value, monthly payment.  How the school processes that is their prerogative.  Some schools don’t use it, some have extra info they collect.

My favorite is schools with a supplemental form, “What do you expect to pay?”  One DC got one of these from Smith, the other from Macalester.[/quote]

This is correct.  People who choose to "live large" in having large monthly expenses do NOT benefit under the FAFSA in the calculation of their EFC. [/quote]
Actually, they would, wouldn't they, if they are not saving for college and have no money available in accessible accounts? Whereas Family B may have saved hundreds of thousands for college and is expected to use it all, Family A may qualify for financial aid. [/quote]

This is going in circles.  Maybe the confusion, is just fantasy about how much financial aid is available.  The FAFSA, calculates a number that your family is expected to pay.  But that's just a number, there's no promise a family like yours *can* pay it, just that it was calculated in the same way for every family. In fact most people find the number much too high and discover available aid has not kept up with the cost of attendance at all.  E.g. an awful lot of families have an EFC that is higher than the cost of attendance at their state school.

So you can blow 100K on a European vacation the year before filing, and the EFC will come in 6K lower, but that's still above full pay.  Now you need to find a way to pay 28K a year, AND you have no savings.  Or you could have had $100K in medical expenses, same thing, you still might be full pay.[/quote]

Exactly.  If your income is high enough (and we're not talking THAT high), you'll be full pay for a state school even if you have no savings. [/quote]
I wasn't talking about state schools; I was talking about schools that use CSS (yes, I know that some state schools use CSS, too).[/quote]

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