I spoke to the Director of Finance up at school about tuition assistance. He asked me to come in, which I guess is a good sign. It meant that event though we ended up getting no assistance, there was at least some hope.
What he told me was that we didn't get anything because of the large amount of equity of our houses. We have one house that we live in, but the other one (in Ireland) is our retirement savings. We have IRAs but no 401k's or pensions.
He said that if he were me, he'd write an appeal (he said it could be just an email; that it didn't have to be a formal letter). He said we needed to explain a few things:
- the Irish house is retirement savings (not a second home) and that it's rented year-round.
- the tax situation (Irish capital gains is 33% - so the value of the house is not what our equity actually is); plus the exchange rate is lower than when we did our tuition assistance paperwork
- Expenses mean we don't make anything on the rental of the home (we'd really like to sell, but the exchange rate is not great right now but we are hoping to sell the house and buy something somewhere else where we'll make money from the rent)
He said that we may get something if we do this, and we need to get the info back to him by Monday morning.
I already drafted the email!
Tuition Assistance Part 2
February 27th, 2015 at 09:15 pm
February 27th, 2015 at 09:33 pm 1425072835
February 27th, 2015 at 09:38 pm 1425073132
February 28th, 2015 at 12:18 am 1425082703
February 28th, 2015 at 01:19 am 1425086363
February 28th, 2015 at 04:36 am 1425098200
February 28th, 2015 at 03:21 pm 1425136904
February 28th, 2015 at 11:52 pm 1425167540