CTbballDad posted:2019Dad posted:Smitty is right that significant assets will alter the calculation, with two exceptions: (1) your primary residence is not counted; (2) retirement accounts are not counted. With those exceptions, from what I've read, they'll expect 5% of assets to be available for college expenses. So someone with, say, $1.5 million in non-retirement, non-primary-residence assets is not getting grants, even if their income is $0.
Your primary resident home equity counts for schools that use the CSS Profile, which is the majority of HA schools. 5.64% of your non-retirement goes toward your EFC. If you're "upper middle class" based on the title of this thread, I would think you'd have some assets.
Yeah, it differs by school. He mentioned Princeton in the original post; Princeton does not count your primary residence, and I believe uses 5%, not 5.64%. For the vast majority of Americans, it can be a great deal. For the top 20% in terms of income/assets, perhaps not a great deal.