<p>I just completed the FAFSA and to my surprise, the EFC is about 50k! I went back to EFC calculator on Collegeboard, and put in the same figures I used for FAFSA (income, assets, etc.), and got ~36k with both Federal and Institutional Methodology. How can the difference be so huge (~14k)!! </p>
<p>I have not received my W2 yet, so I have to use the estimate for income, tax, etc. We have ~120k combined gross income, one child only (family of 3). D does not have any of her own assets or income. We do have some Education IRA, 529 plan, stocks... which total about 140k (in either form, these are not itemized). We do not own any business or rental...strict pay check income. It should be straight forward. Which one should be the reasonable EFC amount? Did I do something wrong?</p>
<p>I've been reading the forum for the past few weeks, learned a lot. Thanks for the helpful tips and explanations.</p>
<p>There must be a difference in an entry, somewhere - because the online calculators use exactly the same formula -- I would suggest that you print out a FAFSA worksheet and go over everything line by line to make sure you have entered everything correctly.</p>
<p>I did print the worksheet first, as little as I know about finance, some questions aren't very clear. I use DH's w2 comparing my year-end paycheck to make the estimate. Questions:</p>
<p>. Q85 - in worksheet B, very first question, payments to tax-defferred pension and savings plan.... </p>
<p>I put in the total amount we put in 401k. I notice in CB this one is not asked, could this make the big difference?</p>
<p>.Q80 - parent's 2006 US income tax paid</p>
<p>I use the Fed withholding amount. Although CB says not to, I am not sure what else to use before tax filed. </p>
<p>. Q90 - student's number of family
. Q91 - student's number in college</p>
<p>Both left blank. Should this be the same as Q66, Q67 in parent section? </p>
<p>Any help is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I remember there was a thread about help on FAFSA, which has instruction on the web with detailed explaination for each entry on web, but I could not find it anywhere.</p>
<p>You have to use the same numbers on both. If you report the amount you put into your 401K, it is added back to your income. Without a similar add back on the CB calculator, the income will be less, so yes, it would contribute to the difference as does the "income tax" paid info.</p>
<p>Link to detailed explanation of questions ^^</p>
<p>90 & 91 are for independant students so should not make a difference.</p>
<p>85 - even though your annual contribution to 401k is deductable for tax (so would not be included in the AGI) it is still considered income for FAFSA so the number entered here is added back to income . Would not be enough to make $14k difference though. You did put annual contribution not 401k balance right?</p>
<p>My kids aren't off to college yet, but I was playing around with numbers to see what, if anything, we might get in the way of FA. I also had a huge difference between the CB calculator and the FAFSA. The only difference I could tell was that I don't recall putting in the amount of retirement contributions on the CB form and I did do that on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>From what I've read on this board, assuming those marginal dollars are assessed as 47% to college expenses, that would about make up the difference between the two calculators.</p>
<p>Thanks all. I add back the 401k contribution to gross income in CB calculator. Now the FM and IM came back ~48k. The 2k difference is no longer important. Looks like we are not going to get any financial aid.</p>
<p>The way it calculated with all assets, is it considered for the first year only? </p>
<p>I guess I should have done my homework, say if we had put more to the mortgage instead, it might be a bit different. The large assets are mostly the employee stock purchase plan, that took out of each paycheck for years (I was shocked myself with the sum, in a good way). The stock happens to be in 6 years high now. Oh well, I don't see any point to even bother with CSS profile now.</p>