You would qualify for financial aid if your entire family’s income (your parents’ income) is less than $150,000 (nzd) per year and that your family only owns one property (the size and type of your property is not taken into account as long as your family only owns a single property. Furthermore, the amount of mortgage your family owes as part of the property is not also taken into account). For further information, you can try the Net Price Calculator of each need-blind college in order to see what kind of financial aid package you can receive. Here is an example from the Harvard financial aid calculator:

Hi Victor,

I was using the NPC for some schools, and I got very different results, ranging from $7k to $50k+… Does this mean the value of our primary house (home equity) is taken into account then? And I’m guessing some schools take home equity into account, hence giving less aid, and some schools ignore it, hence giving more aid?

Hi @anonymous68

You’re correct. All schools have different calculation methods - some are more generous whereas others are stingy. However, most don’t take into account the family home.

Makes sense, thanks. Some of the NPC only applies to american students, so is there any way to know whether a school takes home equity into account? Would you say roughly the ~top 20ish schools (due to large endowments) would be more generous, and hence ignore home equity (or cap it)?
Thank you

Hello! You can only qualify for financial aid once you apply. It’s difficult to say what the benchmark each school considers for qualifying for financial aid given that there is a room full of people at each school making these decisions. I would refer to this question on how financial aid is calculated. If you have any questions for a specific school, I would highly suggest contacting their office of financial aid!