<p>I recently received my financial aid award from a school that claims to meet 100% of demonstrated need. My family's EFC according to FAFSA is $12,030, yet the school has left us with $34,000 in expenses. Is this normal?</p>
<p>If the college/university in question only uses the FAFSA for determining financial need, then yes this would be a bit odd. However if it uses the CSS Profile or its own financial aid application, then it is not surprising at all.</p>
<p>Sit down with your parents. Run your family’s financial information through the Net Price Calculator at the college/university website. If the aid predicted by the calculator is significantly different from what you have been offered, pick up the phone, call the financial aid office, and ask whether or not they could review your aid package. Perhaps there was an error in the information that you provided.</p>
<p>Isn’t the CSS usually more generous than the FAFSA?</p>
<p>When a college claims to meet 100% of need, they mean “need” as they determine it – and they all require the CSS and/or have their own financial aid applications to supplement the FAFSA. So they are considering income or assets outside of the FAFSA to come up with their determination.</p>
<p>The most common issues that increase the family contribution are home equity; consideration of other assets that are not included with FAFSA, such as business assets; a noncustodial parent’s income and assets; and revisions made by the school to self-employment income (typically the school will add some of the common schedule C deductions such as vehicle expenses or depreciation back into the equation).</p>
<p>You may be able to contact the school and have a financial aid officer go over the award and tell you how amounts were calculated. I have found that where there is a noncustodial parent in the picture the financial aid offices tend to avoid disclosing anything about that 2nd set of income and assets, but for other issues they generally were very open and willing to go over information. There’s always the possibility that there is an error somewhere along the way, so it’s worth the time to go over the award. </p>
<p>Each school may have its own methodology in determining its EFC and setting an ESC. (ESC = expected student contribution, which would be the student work and loan portion.)</p>
<p>Presumably, the school which gave you a net price of $34,000 probably set ESC between $5,000 and $10,000 and calculated your EFC to be about $24,000 to $29,000 using a methodology different (and less generous) from FAFSA EFC.</p>
<p>If your parents are divorced, remember that FAFSA EFC considers only the custodial parent’s income, but schools which use their own methodology typically consider the other parent’s income as well.</p>
<p>My father may have accidentally provided his income in the wrong currency on the CSS (we live in Australia so his income is in Australian dollars) - I am an American citizen though, just to make that clear as far as need met issues. He did make this mistake originally on the FAFSA, and when he fixed it our EFC went from $20,000 down to $12,000. It said specifically on the CSS to enter income in American dollars and I kept reminding him that he needed to do that but he kept saying it was too difficult and wouldn’'t make a difference (obviously untrue). How would we proceed if that is the issue? Call each school I’ve applied/been accepted to and explain the situation and give them the correct information?</p>
<p>AU$1.00 = US$0.91 currently, so that difference may not account for that big a discrepency, although you want to contact the financial aid offices to get that cleared up.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus My parents’ aren’t divorced and we have no second houses or significant assets at all. No savings or business assets- my father works for himself from home. Federal Work-Study is included in the amount that still leaves $34,000, as is Direct Sub Stafford Loan.</p>
<p>Isn’t the CSS usually more generous than the FAFSA?</p>
<p>Usually the opposite.
How much equity do your patents have in their home?
My experience is, schools see that as a resource.</p>
<p>Wah, la, internet.
<a href=“Xe Currency Converter - Live Exchange Rates Today”>http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/</a></p>
<p>Do your parents have income that isn’t taxed in the US under the foreign earned income exclusion? That amount is supposed to be disclosed on the FAFSA, but I can see how someone could make a mistake and leave that info off of the FAFSA – so that’s the sort of thing the college financial aid office might notice and rectify. </p>
<p>And as to your other question – the CSS/Profile calculation is usually less generous than the FAFSA --that’s the reason the colleges use it. It provides them with a way of learning about income and assets that might not be reflected in the FAFSA.</p>
<p>There are some exceptions… but most of the time it will result in a higher calculation of family ability to pay than the FAFSA EFC would reflect. </p>
<p>You wrote, “we have no second houses” – the CSS/Profile considers the equity in the FIRST house – the one you live in – if your parents own the house. </p>
<p>@emeraldkity4 I don’t want to sound ignorant but I’m not totally sure what home equity is? I know our house is worth a lot (especially by American standards - Australian homes are much more expensive in general) but I’m quite sure they have a couple of mortgages on it. Sorry if I sound silly!</p>
<p>@calmom My mum isn’t a US citizen so she doesn’t report her income to the American government. My understanding is that my father as an American citizen must report his income to the American government, but that he certainly does not have to pay taxes to them as well as the Australian government…we would have nothing left! haha especially with Australian taxes being so high</p>
<p>@emeraldkity4 and @calmom Ok I looked up home equity. I’m guessing they would have very,very little</p>
<p>@SummerAus - Home equity is money that is the difference between the current market value of the house minus any mortgages and loans due on the house. If the house is valued at $1,000,000 and $700,000 is owed on it, your home equity is $300,000. Now, if your parents house is valuable and some of any mortgage has been paid off, then home equity will be considered as a resource for college.</p>
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<p>Don’t guess – do you have a copy of the CSS Profile your parents submitted. That would have the figure they gave to the college. </p>
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<p>Of course not – but I am thinking that her income probably was, or should have been , reported on the CSS Profile.</p>
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<p>Of course he doesn’t have to pay taxes - that’s what the foreign earned income exclusion is all about – but that amount DOES have to be reported on the FAFSA and the CSS/Profile. </p>
<p>I do think that you should let financial aid officers know how much your parents’ are paying for taxes in Australia – if that wasn’t already noted on the CSS Profile. That is something they would not be able to figure out without your telling them, and is something that can be subtracted from income to lower your EFC. </p>
<p>Is this award from a top choice school? I’m thinking that you may find that you have financial aid awards all over the map-- it might be easier if you simply gather information about family finances right now, and then wait until all decisions and financial aid awards are in. You might find that another college is far more generous – thereby eliminating the need to discuss the current award. </p>
<p>@calmom thank you so much for all this advice! It is a pretty top choice school, but I am still waiting on the majority of replies (8 more schools, plus my financial aid award for a school I’ve been accepted to already). Most of the leftover schools are reaches though. Most of the schools have my parents Australian tax returns (all accept one, not this one, required them), so they would know amount paid in taxes. Both my parents income was reported on the CSS as it should have been. We will have to sit down and have a conversation and meanwhile I will also contact the school via email just about having a conversation</p>
<p>Our posts crossed. See you looked it up. Seems like you are on the case. Good luck.</p>
<p>You may find that your reach school is more generous with financial aid. I have seen considerable variation with award amounts with my own kids – generally with about a $10K variation from best to worst. So just hang on.</p>
<p>The other thing I would suggest that you do is create a spreadsheet to track the awards – note the total cost of attendance for each school, the total amount you are awarded in grants, student loans, and work study. Let the spreadsheet do some math for you, so you can have a column that shows how much is owed after grants are subtracted out – and again how much needs to be paid after loans are taken out. </p>
<p>Don’t pay attention to any amount listed as a parent PLUS loan – that’s a financing option for your parents, but not part of financial aid. </p>
<p>It also might be useful to look at how the college figures full COA (cost of attendance) and separate out firm costs (tuition, room & board) from estimated costs such as books and incidentals. </p>
<p>I think that if you have all of that information set out in a way that way, then it’s a lot easier to compare the awards-- and then see where you are going when you get to the next step of having that conversation. One reason to wait is that if some schools are more generous than others, it may help you when framing the conversation with the less generous schools. Obviously you don’t need to bother to talk to a school that has come up short on financial aid if you would prefer to attend somewhere else – but if it is a top choice school, then it definitely is worth having a chat to see if there is any possibility of revision of the award. </p>
<p>@calmom thank you for all the suggestions, they are some very good ideas. Hopefully I’ll get into at least one of my reaches and get some better FA, although even 10k less than the $34,000 would still be twice the FAFSA EFC and not feasible for my parents unfortunately, although I know they will contribute all that they can. I don’t want to have to take out too many loans, really nothing over 12k (over 4 years) as I am about 65% sure I want to go to law school and about 90% sure I want to either go to grad or law school. </p>
<p>You say your parents do NOT own a business, but working for ones self at home is so considered having a business. Some tax deductions taken for that may well have been added back in; that’s a big issue in home businesses. The business may also be given a value as an asset. You need to tell your parents that they and you need to go over the PROFILE v-e-r-y carefully, every line items, get a print out on directions and some commentary on each line, and so you can catch every error and also see clearly what the difference is between this form and FAFSA. Get a copy of the FAFSA too, so you can see this.</p>
<p>Yes, most of the time PROFILE results in a much higher expected contribution. As Calmom and others have said, many PROFILE start right out with an expected student contribution amount that the school sets, wheareas the FAFSA EFC starts wit a zero and the only student contribution calculated is from student assets on the day filed and income over $6K in the prior year. That’s just step one and it intensifies as one goes along. </p>