<p>Hi, freshman applicant here with a question for current college students, recent graduates, and parents. Is the EFC estimate listed on the Student Aid Report a generally accurate estimate, based on your personal experience with the FAFSA and student aid? I am fully aware that financial aid packages differ from school to school, obviously, but I'm wondering whether it's common for students to pay approximately the EFC or if they're actually paying less (or more).</p>
<p>The EFC estimate on my SAR was on the high side--I plan to attend a University of California campus, and the SAR says that our EFC will be about two-thirds of the COA for one year. Will my family really be obligated to pay that out-of-pocket, or does the EFC tend to be inaccurate? Again, I know that financial aid differs with each school, but I'm trying to get a general feel about the EFC.</p>
<p>If your EFC is that high, don’t expect to get any need based aid other than loans. The amount you pay is pretty much always higher than the EFC and in your case, you will probably end up paying everything.</p>
<p>If a school relied on the FAFSA as their sole source of information about a student’s financial situation and if that school also committed to meeting each student’s full financial need, then, yes, your EFC would be accurate.</p>
<p>The difficulty is that those two “if’s” rarely coincide. What you’ll find instead are:</p>
<p>(1) schools that rely on FAFSA, but do not meet their students’ full financial need, and
(2) schools that meet their students’ full financial need, but do not rely on FAFSA in determining that need.</p>
<p>The first group of schools will acknowledge that your EFC is X . . . but they will not bridge the gap between X and the school’s full cost of attendance. Result: you’ll likely end up paying substantially more than X.</p>
<p>The second group of schools will use the CSS Profile or their own individual financial aid forms to determine your need, and that determination may be quite different from your FAFSA EFC. Depending on the complexity of your finances, it is not unusual that you would be expected to contribute more than your EFC, sometimes substantially more.</p>
<p>The UC’s rely on FAFSA and also commit to meeting students’ full financial need . . . but only for lower income students. For all other students, there is likely to be a significant gap.</p>
<p>To figure out what you might be expected to pay at any school, run that school’s net price calculator (NPC) - you’ll find it on the school website. The more questions the NPC asks, the more accurate it’s likely to be. But if your parents own a business, or have any kind of unusual financial situation, the NPC’s will be less reliable.</p>
<p>The EFC will be the minimum amount your family will be expected to pay. The schools that use only the FAFSA do not meet full need. There is a strong likelihood that the school will not award you aid that will fully cover the difference between the COA and your EFC.</p>
<p>Your EFC could change if you made a mistake on your numbers.</p>
<p>most schools do not promise to meet need based on FAFSA EFC. That’s a federal number. Schools aren’t obligated to do much with that number other than see if you qualify for the small amounts of fed aid.</p>
<p>However, you’re a Calif resident applying to UCs. Do your parents earn less than $80k? If so, then you qualify for Blue and Gold.</p>
<p>When my D received her FA packages, schools ranged from expecting us to pay 1and 1/2 times the EFC to over 3 times the EFC. None came in to meet the EFC. Good luck.</p>
<p>@dodgersmom: The net price calculator gives a lower EFC. But the FAFSA is more thorough in its questions, so I’m more inclined to look to the FAFSA’s EFC estimate.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: Does the Blue and Gold Plan consider family assets or is the criteria for eligibility SOLELY based on income? The search results I’m finding aren’t very specific about eligibility requirements except that you have to file a FAFSA and be under 80K.</p>
<p>[2013-14</a> Income/Asset ceilings (Cal Grants)](<a href=“http://www.csac.ca.gov/facts/2013-14_income_ceilings_new_apps_renewing_recips.pdf]2013-14”>http://www.csac.ca.gov/facts/2013-14_income_ceilings_new_apps_renewing_recips.pdf)</p>
<p>Keep in mind, though, that the only assets considered are those listed on FAFSA. That’s the only financial aid application that’s used in determining eligibility for Cal Grants. For more information about Cal Grants, see here: [Fund</a> Your Future: 2012-13](<a href=“http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/newi2_CAworkbook_interactive.pdf]Fund”>http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/newi2_CAworkbook_interactive.pdf). There’s also a [url=<a href=“http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/fyf_workbook_Interactive_eng.pdf]2013-14[/url”>http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/fyf_workbook_Interactive_eng.pdf]2013-14[/url</a>] guide, but it’s much less detailed.</p>
<p>Which school’s NPC gave you a lower cost than your FAFSA EFC?</p>
<p>The CSAC has confirmed by email that I will not qualify for a CalGrant–though I didn’t expect anything different.</p>
<p>The UCLA calculator gives me an EFC that’s about half of what FAFSA is saying. HOWEVER, the “estimated net cost” given by the UCLA calculator is in the same ballpark as the FAFSA EFC estimate. Which now makes me confused about how “EFC” is defined . . .</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: Does the Blue and Gold Plan consider family assets or is the criteria for eligibility SOLELY based on income? The search results I’m finding aren’t very specific about eligibility requirements except that you have to file a FAFSA and be under 80K.</p>
<p>Assets do come into play, but I don’t know the threshold. On the B&G page it says that the student must have need. So, if you have a lot of assets, and your EFC is high, then you wouldn’t qualify.</p>
<p>What is your situation? What is your EFC? Does your family earn under $80k?</p>
<p>My family meets the income requirement for Blue and Gold (just barely). But I don’t think we have a noticeable “need” because of assets, unfortunately. My dad has repeated emphatically that we won’t qualify for anything except loans; now that I’ve seen the numbers for myself, I’m feeling inclined to agree that we probably won’t get much. It’s not that we’re poor or struggling or anything like that; my parents have a good financial history and stable work. But $30,000 a year is a huge, serious expense. I might end up taking a loan, probably.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that school will include the max $5,500 Stafford Loan you can take as a Freshman as part of your “aid” package and then gap you. So you won’t be able to take a loan out in your name only to bridge the gap. You would need a qualified co-signer or have your parents take out a PLUS loan to get additional loan money. Both are a very bad idea and a sign you cannot afford the school. Max Stafford loans are the most you should take out for undergrad IMO. Otherwise you can ruin your life with debt. </p>
<p>College is supposed to paid out of a combination of savings, current earnings, student earnings, and loans. If you don’t have one or more of those components schools don’t adjust your FA upward. Hopefully you have a safety that is a school you can afford and/or get significant merit aid.</p>
<p>Please speak with your parents about how they expect you to pay for your education. Find out how much they are ready, willing, and able to chip in each year. Find out how they feel about loans, and find out how much they expect you to earn so that you can help cover your own expenses. Then use that information to evaluate your offers. The UCs may not be affordable right now, but if you complete the required courses at a nearby CCC while living at home, you may be able to save enough money to make transferring to a UC possible. My own kid did the CC to State U route here in MD, and it made a huge difference for us.</p>
<p>But $30,000 a year is a huge, serious expense. I might end up taking a loan, probably</p>
<p>YOU can’t borrow much. YOU can borrow the following amounts</p>
<p>5500 frosh
6500 soph
7500 jr
7500 sr</p>
<p>Not enough to pay for a UC. To borrow more would mean that your parents would have to be willing and qualified cosigners. Most parents won’t do this because they’re on the hook if you don’t pay. Newish grads do NOT earn enough to pay back big loans.</p>
<p>What is your career goal? How much will you be earning upon graduation?</p>
<p>There’s a reason why the loan limits for students are what they are. That’s about the max a newish grad can afford in regards to loan payments. </p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year? It sounds like your EFC is about $20k per year. That suggests that UCs will give you loans and work study to make up the rest of the cost.</p>
<p>My dad (who controls the family finances) has said that we actually probably could pay for most of the COA out of pocket, and he thinks it’s a bad idea for me to take out loans (especially since I am more likely to go into the liberal arts than STEM). I am thinking about work-study, but that option is dependent on whether the fin aid packages will OFFER me work-study, because my cousins who have gone to college within the last 10 years are in roughly the same middle-class status as I am, and none of them were offered work-study by the UC campuses. </p>
<p>However, I don’t want to drain the family savings, and I don’t want to make my parents take out a home equity loan either, because we’re a single-income family and my dad will retire in less than a decade (which would mean a very tight repayment schedule for any loans on my parents’ part). </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: I’m not completely sure of what career path I’m going to take. But most of the options that I am currently considering would NOT put me in a position to pay off large loans on time. I am currently thinking of double-majoring in Economics and English. </p>
<p>If I choose that option, I might get a teacher’s credential OR go to grad school in a field within economics OR go straight into the workforce in search of an economics-related job. (And a very, very, distant idea I am considering is getting a PhD in Econ and working in research–but that’s too far away to seriously think about.) </p>
<p>As you can see, every path (except for going straight to work in an econ-related job) would require grad school in some form. None of them are particularly lucrative professions, and I would have to live at home for any grad school. So I have to keep money in mind. Even if I take no loans for undergrad, I will almost certainly need them for grad school.</p>
<p>Does anyone know when financial aid packages are sent to students? I’ve been accepted to three UCs and none of them have sent me any financial info yet.</p>