<p>Oh, I know. That’s why I say it’s okay to vent. But then move forward … ;)</p>
<p>A very, very select few lower income kids get accepted to colleges that will meet their financial need. Outside of that tiny select band of very lucky, very high-achieving kids, it is most certainly not true to say lower income kids have broader opportunities than students from families making 100K/yr. The hard-working focused ones usually go to community college, and then some will transfer to a 4-yr public. That’s the best option they normally have (and it’s a good one!)</p>
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<p>Those numbers actually sound about right, if your parents are talking about paying $12K out of current income. Think of EFC as 1/3 (past) savings, 1/3 current income and 1/3 (future) loans. In your case, that would be $11,527 each per college year of tuition. It sounds like they’ve got the current income covered. If they can pay $12K now, then they can pay back the loan at $12K annually after you graduate. The only question is whether they have the $34,580 in savings needed to make up the last piece.</p>
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Our EFC was in the mid-40’s. To say we were shocked was putting it mildly.</p>
<p>And apparently the CSS/Profile number was even higher, because we were offered <em>nothing</em> from any of the non-merit aid schools. As a result we took a top-15 and two top-35 schools off the table, these would have required $100K+ in debt between us and our kid, and we just weren’t going to allow it. Kid was disappointed but he got over it, and loves where he is (which started off as his last choice - we forced him to apply there! Go figure.)</p>
<p>I have some lingering resentment and bitterness about the whole process, but it is not aimed at the EFC so much (which after all is just to hand out small amounts of gov’t aid, even though I think the formulas are ridiculous and out of date) but at the whole college/student loan industry, which have worked hand-in-hand to drive up the cost of college at far in excess of the rate of inflation for decades. Overly-easy access to loans, along with selling the “dream school” fantasy, has allowed some schools to push their costs to absurd levels (which they like, because it makes them “exclusive”, which then enables the lower tier schools to raise their prices without being punished by the market, because you can just borrow it all! Gack! </p>
<p>Example: my alma mater now costs 9x what it cost when I want there 30 years ago. The crappy brick-and-cinder-block dorm I lived in now costs 10x what I paid. It’s out of control, the college bubble has to burst eventually.</p>
<p>We will be quite a bit smarter about the college search when it comes time for kid #2 to start looking.</p>
<p>I’m glad I checked out the EFC calculator last December. It does help to have it laid out that Bay did, above. If it’s meant to be
, then I feel better about the amount of money I’ve been able to sock away.</p>
<p>We’ve been very frugal and do not go on vacations, buy new cars, etc. In some perverse way, I’m almost glad to see that this was, after all, necessary to keep our daughters’ college options open.</p>
<p>30 years ago when I went to the University of Illinois, Champaign, tuition was a few hundred dollars per semester. I don’t remember the exact figures. My school teacher parents were able to just write checks for tuition and room and board. Tuition at state universities has gone up much beyond inflation and I have never read any good explanation as to why.</p>
<p>Our EFC is the max $99,999. Every single time I think about college, I want to cry.</p>
<p>My mom works two full time jobs in order to send us to private school. So the three kids’ tuition completely eats my dad’s income and a little more. FAFSA doesn’t see that (unless we don’t understand something). </p>
<p>I’m the oldest; my sophomore brother is barely hanging on to a 3.0 right now (so likely no merit aid for him), and by the time the youngest graduates from high school, my parents will be 64 (I am expected to pay for his college tuition). I applied to 7 financial safeties (all now range from $15k to $27k after merit aid) but I’ve fallen OUT of love with most of them. </p>
<p>My counselor said most colleges will not sympathize with our situation. What are we supposed to do in order to get a reasonable EFC? Quit at least one job, send my brothers to one of the worst ranked school districts in the state, or even, move back to my parents home country? Heh, I hate the FAFSA!!!</p>
<p>^^^the harder you work, the less you get.</p>
<p>I paid $3 that’s THREE DOLLARS a credit hour at UT Austin in 1980. Seriously. DH, who was an OOS, paid a whopping $30. THIRTY. Thanks, inflation.</p>
<p>The FAFSA won’t actually award you much money anyway, Odd Monkey, not enough to go away to college. It’s not like if you get a low EFC you get a bunch of money. And no, the FAFSA does not account for private school tuition. It is a choice, like any other consumer choice from a federal perspective. I know it doesn’t seem like a choice to your family to send their kids to private school, it feels like a necessity… but for the federal gov’t to look at it as a necessity would mean asking taxpayers to effectively help your family out with its private school tuition while they are sending their own kids to public school. So you can see how that won’t fly, right?</p>
<p>Some private colleges use the CSS Profile app (in addition to the FAFSA) and do take private school tuition into account, but they do that because they are using their own private institutional funds (not public money) and they can do what they choose with it.</p>
<p>You’d also help yourself out a lot if you started thinking about schools in a different way than lovers. You don’t need to “fall in love” with a college. You need to choose a college that is a good match in as many ways as possible (including financially). Even if “falling in love” with a college made any sense at all, you’re really just falling in love with some idea you have of what it could be… not what it will really end up being in practical fact, because how could you know.</p>
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Let me try to understand this:
You have the maximum possible EFC which means your parents combined income must be at LEAST what…$250K+?
With an income that high you live in one of the worse school districts in the state?
Your parents chose to have another child at 46 years of age and you are expected to pay his tuition?
Obviously I’m missing something.</p>
<p>*Tuition at state universities has gone up much beyond inflation and I have never read any good explanation as to why. *</p>
<p>I think there are several reasons…</p>
<p>1) The state expects individuals/families to pay for a great portion of the students’ college education, since the cost of k-12 education & other state programs have sky-rocketed.</p>
<p>2) College education at the state level has become more means-tested. </p>
<p>3) Colleges are offering better facilities.</p>
<p>4) Tuition has risen to help subsidize institutional need-based grants.</p>
<p>5) The demand for increased (and costly) security measures on campus has significantly risen.</p>
<p>Let me try to understand this:
You have the maximum possible EFC which means your parents combined income must be at LEAST what…$250K+?
With an income that high you live in one of the worse school districts in the state?
Your parents chose to have another child at 46 years of age and you are expected to pay his tuition?
Obviously I’m missing something.</p>
<p>Yes, I thought the same thing. For the parents to have a $99k EFC, then their income has to be VERY high or they have to have enormous assets.</p>
<p>It also sounds like these kids are being sent to very expensive private schools if the family’s income is that high and yet they can’t afford college. How much is the high school tuition for each child? Aren’t there any less expensive private schools? Catholic schools are usually cheaper.</p>
<p>And, I agree, with that high of income, they could move to an area with a better school district! Even if they had to rent.</p>
<p>Odd Monkey…why is your parents’ EFC so high??? </p>
<p>BTW…your parents cannot MAKE you pay for your youngest sibling’s college education, just like you can’t make your parents pay for yours. Don’t say anything about it now, but the fact is that when they only have one child left, they can afford to pay for THAT child - after all, there won’t be any private school tuition to pay for at that point. No one has the right to retire at 64 - especially people who have a child late in life. Many people have to work beyond age 65. No one knows how much college tuition will cost when your sibling goes to college, so there’s no way to know whether you’ll be earning enough to afford that. You could be married with a child at that point. What if your spouse’s parents had the same expectation? Would you be expected to pay for 2 siblings’ college educations??? </p>
<p>I wouldn’t say anything right now, because your parents probably wouldn’t be able to digest all of this right now because all they see is high tuition for the 3 of you. However, at some point, they’ll need to be told that they will be responsible for their youngest child’s college costs, not you (or your brother).</p>
<p>BTW…As the kids go to college, your parents will no longer be paying the high school tuition. So, your pricey high school tuition is now available for college.</p>
<p>I will go back to venting too ;)</p>
<p>MIddle class here- our EFC for our first was about $14,000.
We made before taxes about $55,000. Not a lot of savings, with an uneven employment history of underemployment\ unemployment, what savings we had, had been eaten up by medical expenses and living costs.</p>
<p>$14,000 was huge for us to come up with , however, she was able to get subsidized stafford loans, subsidized Perkins loans, manageable work study and she took a year off before college to earn an Americorp ed award that she applied to her loans upon graduation from her top private ( $$$$) lib arts college that met full need.</p>
<p>Looking at 8 years later we are making a tad more ( $77,000), however with only one child now at home, our EFC is pushing $20,000. Daughter not really looking at the schools that meet full need, not with that much to come up with, plus need could be met with loans anyway. She is attending in state public after taking a year off , and although the cost is roughly equal to EFC, we did still apply to FAFSA so that she could get Stafford loans, although what I would really like to moan about is that she is not eligible for work study monies, and that makes finding a job on campus near impossible, and without a car, finding a job off campus is logistically tough.</p>
<p>Incidentally we live in a very expensive area- ( 32% higher than US average) however expensive areas are where the jobs are- and reduce transportation costs.</p>
<p>I’m with you on the workstudy issue, emeraldkity. Both my kids have to work during the term for all their spending money. Neither has a car, one goes to college in a very small town where there would be virtually no work available off-campus. And of course they’re also in college towns where there is enormous compeition for those off-campus jobs. Fortunately they have both received workstudy, but if they didn’t it would be really unfortunate!</p>
<p>My EFC is 26k and my parents income is 145k but 26k is a lot becuase they have no extra money becuae of horrible credit and huge credit card debt, but my brother will go to school in 2 years and the EFC will go down to about 13k so it’s not horrible I will just have about 60k in debt, when I graduate.</p>
<p>I am a single parent who fortunately has a good job. I have been saving for college for years and live below my means. I understand why my EFC is high. What bothers me, as does any entitlement program, is that it can reward less responsible people. When my sister’s kids went to college, they all got aid packages from the schools. Her family also always had the best of everything–Disney vacations staying at the most expensive on-site hotels, all the newest electronic gadgets, etc. They had to file bankruptcy because of it. Their children all got aid packages from private schools. I do all the right things and get blown away on the fasfa. It seems to reward people that have no savings. BTW, I have always saved even when I had minimum wage jobs, so it can be done.
Anyway, as usual, my son will go to the state college because that makes the most sense and he will be able to graduate without debt and have money for graduate school.</p>
<p>Soccer, your EFC is actually low for the income. I know it’s hardly comforting, but at least you can take some solace - however small - in the fact that your EFC could be higher.</p>
<p>And remember … taking on debt is NOT necessary. It was most likely a choice for your parents (unless it’s medical debt, in which case it’s a necessity). It is a choice for you. Please understand that there are less expensive alternatives for education. $60k is a lot of debt for an undergrad degree. You may want to at least consider less expensive alternatives.</p>
<p>*I am a single parent who fortunately has a good job. I have been saving for college for years and live below my means. I understand why my EFC is high. What bothers me, as does any entitlement program, is that it can reward less responsible people. </p>
<p>When my sister’s kids went to college, they all got aid packages from the schools. Her family also always had the best of everything–Disney vacations staying at the most expensive on-site hotels, all the newest electronic gadgets, etc. They had to file bankruptcy because of it. </p>
<p>Their children all got aid packages from private schools. I do all the right things and get blown away on the fasfa. It seems to reward people that have no savings. BTW, I have always saved even when I had minimum wage jobs, so it can be done.</p>
<p>Anyway, as usual, my son will go to the state college because that makes the most sense and he will be able to graduate without debt and have money for graduate school.*</p>
<p>Yes, I know that it’s frustrating to see situation where people have been irresponsible and yet their kids get great aid packages. My H makes a good living and we have rental property, so we knew that we wouldn’t qualify for any aid. Yes, we could sell some rental property, but we bought that because I won’t have any retirement income. That rental property was in lieu of that. Yet, it offers no retirement protection FAFSA-wise.</p>
<p>Anyway, as usual, my son will go to the state college because that makes the most sense and he will be able to graduate without debt and have money for graduate school.</p>
<p>We’ve faced a similar situation as you’ve described. Our kids wouldn’t qualify for any aid, and both have professional schools in mind. So, they’re going to our state public with great scholarships (for stats), and they won’t have to borrow as much for med/law school.</p>
<p>I don’t know if your child has stats that are high enough to get merit aid that doesn’t consider need. If your child is already a senior, then it’s probably too late for any of those possibilities. But, if your child is junior (or lower), then maybe looking at some merit schools might be an option for you.</p>
<p>Wtztu, if you sister’s kids got good packages from private schools, those are not “entitlement programs” – they are private decisions from private institutions to provide aid for students they would like to see enroll. As to how those institutions weight income, assets, debts, etc., that is wholly their decision since they are dispensing private funds.</p>
<p>The FAFSA does not assess assets very heavily. Parents have an asset protection allowance before any assets are considered available to for college – what it is depends mostly on parental age. Beyond the protected amounts, assets are assessed at only 5.6%.</p>
<p>FAFSA can make students from low-income families (debt is not factored in) eligible for limited grant aid (usually about enough to attend a community college and live at home), and loans. Not a golden ticket to paradise.</p>
<p>I have a kid going to a generous private that gives him a tremendous amount of financial aid (this is all their own money with the exception of about 1300 in a Pell grant from the gov’t), and another kid who is in our state flagship univ. She is getting an excellent education there – but the cost is just about killing us.</p>
<p>No, we also don’t go on vacations, we own an 18 year old subcompact. Life is what it is. When things are hard it’s a natural impulse to look at people who you think are getting an advantage you are not. You see it on these boards about money, family connections, race, athletic abilities, geographic advantages, basic honesty, and just about anything else you can think of. It’s really not worth the energy spent on it.</p>
<p>It is important though that people understand how the financial aid process really works. People who are troubled by which students receive great largess from private schools really need to argue that point with the schools themselves (but only if they believe people and private institutions should not have the power to spend their own money how they choose). It is inaccurate to refer to it as an “entitlement program.”</p>
<p>Is FASFA required? Namely for UC schools? Or for UC scholarships? (i.e. Regents scholarship for UCLA and Berkeley, UCLA Alumni, Berkeley Leadership)</p>