I thought I put my two old articles here before.

Many factors contribute to the final come out. The key is to reduce the EFC because Financial Aid(FA)=total cost-EFC.

EFC will be decided by your family and kid income (TAX return as proof, get ready 2 years in advance in case your kid apply early decision, one year in advance for regular admission.) and parent's asset and kid's asset.

To make it simple, if your current family income is above 180K, don;t expect much even from a private school, definitely no chance from a public school since the total cost is less. If your income is between 60K--180K, something you could do--mainly reduce your asset ( transfer to retirement accounts, which is not counted) and reduce kid's income and asset. Under 60k annual income, your kid are free to go to college.


Since you have a business, I am not sure how the college calculated on this. The income might be easy to figure by your income tax return. About the asset, I have no idea. For primary resident is is very easy, your house value-mortgage. For asset, you can count 6% as EFC anually.

Hope these 2 old articles helpful for you to understand.

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_630b4b010100flta.html

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_630b4b010100fx29.html

所有跟帖： 

• thanks, A Mao. here is EFC Calculator -美西游子- ♀ (148 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 15:59:59

• I believe I put some links in my original articles , too. -Morning3evening4- ♂ (185 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 16:21:42

• very enlighten..... -jy101- ♂ (177 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 16:19:33

• There are some changes on 529 plan, which used to be counted -Morning3evening4- ♂ (700 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 16:29:07

• my AGI is not high at all... -jy101- ♂ (150 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 16:37:23

• I know there are business-related section in FASFA form, -Morning3evening4- ♂ (260 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 16:47:14

• 回复：my AGI is not high at all... -jjj7- ♂ (144 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 18:49:09

• 回复：my AGI is not high at all... -美西游子- ♀ (0 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 20:02:14

• be aware of that -美西游子- ♀ (121 bytes) () 07/20/2010 postreply 20:05:47

• AGI is a factor in FA if it is lower enough. -Morning3evening4- ♂ (520 bytes) () 07/21/2010 postreply 05:17:20