For many families, their home is their biggest asset—and in some cases, it can quietly hurt their chances of receiving financial aid. While the FAFSA doesn’t assess home equity, many private colleges that use the CSS Profile do. This difference in treatment can lead to vastly different aid offers depending on the colleges you consider.

At Diversified College Planning, we help families understand how colleges assess assets like home equity—and how that assessment impacts aid eligibility. For instance, the CSS Profile allows each college to decide how much of your home equity to factor into their institutional aid formulas. Some cap it at 1.2x your income, while others consider 100% of it. That means two identical families might get drastically different offers—simply because of where they applied.