[quote=nla]Ivy League schools and most private colleges (including Stanford) don’t just rely on FAFSA to calculate EFC (Expected Family Contribution). In addition to FAFSA, they use CSS Profile. FAFSA does not consider most assets and just consider AGI when calculating EFC. So most of the times FAFSA’s EFC is higher than the actual EFC from the college.
EFC calculation relies heavily on current income but also considers assets. Assets can be savings, money market, CDs, stocks, bonds, investment property equity, home equity, 529 or any other college savings, etc. The CSS profile even asks balances and current contribution to retirement accounts and current automobiles. Colleges uses these informations the way they want it to calculate your EFC.
So AN, even if you retire but your wife still works and makes about 90K a year and about 1.5 M in asset, you will still be full pay.
All colleges has an NPC calculator on their website. Here’s one for Harvard:
