<p>I've been reading a lot of horrible EFC scare stories and would love to hear some counter experiences. When I look at a basic EFC calculator I get something like 25% of our GROSS income as the EFC. Can that be real? How can anyone spend that much on college and survive?</p>
<p>So my question is, what's the real relationship between what your EFC number is and what you ACTUALLY can expect to pay. My kid is class of 2016, gifted both academically and athletically, but I know better than to count on scholarships too much. But at 25% of our income we're going to be looking at state schools.</p>
<p>What's your story? Tell me it's not hopeless!</p>
<p>My EFC was more like 33% of my gross income, and then that was divided in two because I have 2 in college. One chose a very expensive private school, but she has almost all of it paid by merit, athletic, and state grants. The other picked an OOS school but with a reasonable tuition. She has merit and talent scholarships, plus a small alum grant, but I do pay close to the EFC. That also means that Stafford loans are not subsidized.</p>
<p>But the EFC is just one part of financing college. The most important part is picking a school where you can pull together the money to attend. That may be a state school. It may be a private school with great merit that matches with your child’s gpa and scores, talents, other interests (ROTC, sports, science prizes).</p>
<p>And do look at your state schools. Many are the perfect fit for a student, both academically and financially.</p>
<p>Thanks! So if I’m reading this right, you are paying way less than your EFC for the first one? I just wanted to hear that from someone, that this is even theoretically possible inside the financial aid system. </p>
<p>Some parents have sufficient funds to start up college funds when their children are very young, so they already have money available when the child starts college, which means there is not as huge a bite out of annual salary.</p>
<p>Some people only look at colleges that are more affordable, including many,many parents of gifted students.</p>
<p>Some rely on state schools or private schools that offer generous merit scholarships that are available even to wealthy and upper middle class students.</p>
<p>Our good luck story with #2 daughter: There are no public schools in our state that offered a 3+2 program for Physician Assistant programs so she was forced to attend a private school. We looked at schools which offered very generous merit awards, giving her an 80% reduction of tuition cost. She had three local scholarships over the first four years of her education (one -4 years- through a grocery store where I moonlighted; one for three years through our local church affiliation that she competed for and won each of those years; one for a different range of three years through a community foundation). She worked as an RA for two years, which provided free room and board. After her second year, she qualified for student loans for medical careers so that we did not have to co-sign, and she used some of those to pay for some trips abroad with school. And she was REALLY fortunate the year that she started the 2 graduate school years. That year Obamacare provided $44K incentives for students planning to focus on family medicine, so that and a grad student scholarship from the school gave her a surplus over tuition, which she used for living expenses and to pay back some of her loans.</p>
<p>She obtained a $200K education with about $30K in student loans and no money out of my pocket (which we could never have afforded on our <$40K income) and had a starting salary which is allowing her to pay off those loans quickly even with car payments and rental expenses.</p>
<p>Yes…especially for earners with family incomes that are not low income…the FAFSA EFC can easily be between 25% and 33% of your gross income. </p>
<p>Remember, colleges assume your costs will be covered in three ways…past earnings (savings), current earnings (income) and future earnings (loans).</p>
<p>If you are counting the contribution from income and asset together, it can be easily between 25 and 33% of your income. There are certain amount can be taken out from the income in the calculation though so the EFC can be below 20% for lower income family. Nevertheless, the EFC is the minimum you would need to pay unless the school meets your need or with scholarship. Your actual out of pocket cost is likely higher than the EFC. </p>
<p>I’ve seen situations where the EFC was close to 100% of gross income. The reason? Very high assets. Really, if you only look at one or two numbers and not the big picture, you lose focus.</p>
<p>Ignore the EFC. Sit down and do the numbers, and see what it actually is that you can pay for your kid’s education. Get real about how much that kid can earn during the summers and the school year. Decide whether or not loans are OK, and if so how much. Then add up those figures to get your Real Family Contribution. Once you know that number, you will know how long and hard you and your kid will need to dig to identify affordable places to study.</p>
<p>yes, as stated in post #3, I pay much less than the EFC for my daughter #2 (private school), but that’s because she receives a lot of merit/grant money for grades and sports. It wouldn’t matter if my EFC was $0 or $100k, because none of the money was need based financial aid - not one cent. Since I do pay less than the EFC, the stafford loan is not subsidized either.</p>
<p>What a lower EFC can do for you is get a Pell grant and subsidized Stafford loans. Sometimes there is also a SEOG grant or state grants based on that number. After that, it’s up to the schools to award more need based aid, and that’s tough to get. Merit might be easier for those in the $60k+ annual salary range.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t dismiss the academic and sports scholarships so quickly. That is how DD#2 is going to a school she really likes. </p>
<p>We had several schools offer D merit money that brought us below our EFC (and much closer to what we could actually pay). The key to merit money is realizing your stats need to be on the high end for the school to get offers of any significance. Reach schools are not going to offer merit money. You need to find schools where your child will be at the top of the pack academically, but also will still be challenged - for us finding schools with strong Honors programs was key. There are some threads that list schools with guaranteed merit money for kids with certain stats. A lot of other schools have merit awards that are competitive so it’s not a sure thing, but the money is out there.</p>
<p>The real question is what your particular students might be in line to receive in the way of merit $ based on their stats at various colleges and universities. </p>
<p>I haven’t seen too many families that received pure financial aid that made their out-of-pocket costs less than the EFC other than lower income families with students attending one of the Harvard-Yale-Stanford type schools that caps family contributions at some modest percentage of family income for middle class families. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. We’re solidly middle-class, with what I know would be considered a high income elsewhere but we live in a very expensive area and it’s on the low end around here. Between property taxes, mortgage, commuting, kids’ expenses and everything else, it’s not like we have a bunch of money left over at the end of the day. All told in college fund savings there’s about $30K for two kids, which I know won’t go very far. (Related question: Is the money in a 529 plan considered parents’ savings or kids’ savings?)</p>
<p>Reading more comments now, I’m getting encouraged. DD1 may have the right combination of smarts and athletic skills to get her a good package. Thank you so much for the responses!</p>
<p>I think of EFC as not a dollar but some kin of index or code for computing the eligibility for Pell, Stafford loan subsidies, and other financial aid. Outside of schools that promise to meet full need, it’s rarely an indicator of what the family is expected to pay. Your EFC may well be 0, but if the school doesn’t offer you any aid other than the federal grants and loans then may well end up being ‘expected’ to contribute many times your income to meet the gap.</p>
<p>I agree with the others who say that the number is effectively meaningless for most people. Only a tiny few schools treat the EFC as the maximum amount of money that the parents have to pay.I would instead figure out how much money you can afford to spend on college each year and use that to guide your decisions.</p>
<p>Select a college with a COA less than your EFC
Huge merit, large enough to meet need and then some (merit gets applied need first, usually)</p>
<p>I am paying under EFC for both kids at the moment because I am utlizing tuition remission/exchange. It meant that neither are at a reach or even a match school. Both are at safeties where their stats put them well into the top tier of accepted students. I doubt many on cc would recognize college names. But, we followed the money. </p>
<p>I am taking a substantial sum out of current income (equal to my mortgage payment) and the rest out of savings. </p>
<p>I am actually paying less than the FAFSA EFC for my D attending an in state flagship. The school uses both FAFSA and CSS profile. The calculated family contribution from NPC is actually a couple thousand dollars less than the FAFSA EFC. My D got significant amount of scholarships and then the school meet the remaining need with grant. So we end up paying only the amount very close to the NPC calculation with no loan and work study.</p>