My sister and her husband have a HHI of just under $300k. Their kid gets $12k a year in aid (out of a total cost of $90k), so they need to come up with $75k a year between savings, grandparents' contributing, kid has a work-study job, etc. So, you could get aid but it won't be much unless you go in-state public or get some merit aid.

However, I am a practicing lawyer and there's a huge number of law jobs between legal writing and Biglaw. I am a partner at a tiny firm where each lawyer makes around $400-$600k a year while only billing 1200 a year. Biglaw is not the end all be all - you may actually like the practice of law again if you found a position at a better/no name place or went inhouse.

We are 200,000 HHI and that just looks rich even though it doesn't feel at all rich. We also have savings for college - maybe 80,000 from family. This is the definition of donut hole. I am so sorry your job sucks. Can you find a middle ground - a role that makes closer to 100,000 and is more livable. You will feel it more when tuition bills hot, but time is all we have.

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Anonymous wrote:If you’re grinding for savings, your assets might screw you over even if your HHI didn’t.

OP here. Yes, that's what I meant. We're racking up cash to pay for college, but wondering in hindsight if we needed to work so hard to do that or should have maintained and looked for strong aid packages.

Look for merit aid instead of need based aid. All you have to do is go below the top 25.

+1 my kids were not straight A students, but had SATs above 700 in both sections. We did not apply for financial aid, but every private school out of the top 25 offered merit aid, even an ED school.

OP here. I didn't realize merit aid was as easy to come by as some posters are suggesting. That's good to know. One of our DCs is a very strong motivated student, with a heavy course load and all As. Did well on PSAT too. So I will hope that will give her options via merit!

Token discount

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re grinding for savings, your assets might screw you over even if your HHI didn’t.

OP here. Yes, that's what I meant. We're racking up cash to pay for college, but wondering in hindsight if we needed to work so hard to do that or should have maintained and looked for strong aid packages.

Look for merit aid instead of need based aid. All you have to do is go below the top 25.

+1 my kids were not straight A students, but had SATs above 700 in both sections. We did not apply for financial aid, but every private school out of the top 25 offered merit aid, even an ED school.

OP here. I didn't realize merit aid was as easy to come by as some posters are suggesting. That's good to know. One of our DCs is a very strong motivated student, with a heavy course load and all As. Did well on PSAT too. So I will hope that will give her options via merit!

Anonymous wrote:Why should you get any financial aid? Seriously.

I know. Crazy she thinks they need/deserve aid.

Potential financial aid is not a game with clear rules. Nor is admission.

Money means you will have more options

Choose the money route.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re grinding for savings, your assets might screw you over even if your HHI didn’t.

OP here. Yes, that's what I meant. We're racking up cash to pay for college, but wondering in hindsight if we needed to work so hard to do that or should have maintained and looked for strong aid packages.

Look for merit aid instead of need based aid. All you have to do is go below the top 25.

+1 my kids were not straight A students, but had SATs above 700 in both sections. We did not apply for financial aid, but every private school out of the top 25 offered merit aid, even an ED school.

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Anonymous wrote:Hopefully I didn't eff up fafsa but I'm pretty sure you don't include retirement accounts.

For the schools she's wondering about it's FAFSA + CSS. You include retirement accounts in the CSS.

PP here. Ok, thanks for clarifying. I actually did do the CSS profile and IDOC for some of my kid's applications and oh my goodness. Lots of cursing was involved.

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Anonymous wrote:Run a couple of calculators at schools of interest, make sure to include a couple (Emory is one) that include your full home equity as well as others that include it only over it 2x income. Most also include your 401k assets.
Assuming you own your home and have some retirement savings quitting your job may not make that much of a difference.
My guess is when both kids are in college at the same time you will get some aid but you should expect to pay a significant portion of your kids college costs.

That makes sense that equity is included. I'm sort of surprised retirement income would ever be included. Seems cruel to make families choose between paying for kids' education and being able to retire.

It's not cruelty, its to prevent wealthy families from hiding all of their assets in retirement accounts.

but retirement accounts have contribution limits you can't just transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars there at once, and you're penalized if you take it out for uses other than retirement

Not at once, but 401k limits are over $20k per year and IRA limits are about $7k, so a well off couple could funnel over $50k into retirement per year.
State schools that use only the FAFSA won't care, but private schools using the CSS consider retirement assets if they are providing need based financial aid. Which makes sense - need based financial aid is essentially charity, why would you provide charity to a family with millions in retirement accounts?

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully I didn't eff up fafsa but I'm pretty sure you don't include retirement accounts.

For the schools she's wondering about it's FAFSA + CSS. You include retirement accounts in the CSS.

For the privates the CSS is the income disclosure that will probably make more of a difference with institutional-driven need-based aid. If you're still working your current income will probably show up in those financial disclosures even for '27 start, IIRC.

I think if you were to try to dive below income thresholds you'd really have to play the long game, and that might defeat some of the perceived financial "benefits" of shooting for need-based aid as someone capable of higher-earning.

As others have noted - that's also ignoring the household assets you'd presumably need to obscure as a higher HHI family?

And then what if DC decides to stay in-state?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Run a couple of calculators at schools of interest, make sure to include a couple (Emory is one) that include your full home equity as well as others that include it only over it 2x income. Most also include your 401k assets.
Assuming you own your home and have some retirement savings quitting your job may not make that much of a difference.
My guess is when both kids are in college at the same time you will get some aid but you should expect to pay a significant portion of your kids college costs.

That makes sense that equity is included. I'm sort of surprised retirement income would ever be included. Seems cruel to make families choose between paying for kids' education and being able to retire.

It's not cruelty, its to prevent wealthy families from hiding all of their assets in retirement accounts.

but retirement accounts have contribution limits you can't just transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars there at once, and you're penalized if you take it out for uses other than retirement

Hopefully I didn't eff up fafsa but I'm pretty sure you don't include retirement accounts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Run a couple of calculators at schools of interest, make sure to include a couple (Emory is one) that include your full home equity as well as others that include it only over it 2x income. Most also include your 401k assets.
Assuming you own your home and have some retirement savings quitting your job may not make that much of a difference.
My guess is when both kids are in college at the same time you will get some aid but you should expect to pay a significant portion of your kids college costs.

That makes sense that equity is included. I'm sort of surprised retirement income would ever be included. Seems cruel to make families choose between paying for kids' education and being able to retire.

It's not cruelty, its to prevent wealthy families from hiding all of their assets in retirement accounts.

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Anonymous wrote:From most private schools, you will get ~25k/year "merit" scholarship. This is basically school's way of giving you a "discount". The problem is that even with 25k, you still have to pay a lot. Did you not save 529?

We did save. It just wouldn't have been enough for out of state schools without a substantial increase in income.

There is your answer then.