<p>Would y’all consider U of Chicago to be an “elite school?” as far as financial aid help goes? Y’all are saying that y’all can’t afford expensive private schools unles they are elite and have good financial aid policies.</p>
<p>what about chicago?</p>
<p>btw, my EFC is $0. sucks to be poor every other time but this.</p>
<p>The long story about the economics of financial aid: </p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools; </p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/rethinking-stu-aid-fulfilling-commitment-recommendations.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/rethinking-stu-aid-fulfilling-commitment-recommendations.pdf</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/rethinking-stu-aid-effectiveness-of-stu-aid-policies.pdf[/url]”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/rethinking-stu-aid-effectiveness-of-stu-aid-policies.pdf</a></p>
<p>haha! EFC of ~$2,200! but state college will probably make me get loans.
sucks that many of my peers aren’t as lucky about their EFCs ( especially since a lot of their parents have been laid off and will no longer make the same cash as in 2009) :(</p>
<p>i’m not too satisfied with my EFC either. I have an EFC just a little over 7,000 and i was hoping for somewhere near 5,000 or less. whatever, lets just hope for the best</p>
<p>Each time someone on this site spells “FAFSA” like “FASFA”, fifty thousand dollars are added to everyone’s EFC.</p>
<p>Went to WUSTL in the 80’s. All the students were shocked when tuition went from 5 thousand something to 7 thousand. Now, it’s soooooo much more than that so even though my D has been given a scholarship, we could never afford it. What happened?</p>
<p>Do you guys know about 21st Century Scholars in Indiana? Supposedly, if you (a moderate-income student) gets a great GPA in high school (minimum 2.0/4.0), the program pays the remaining tuition/room/board of what the FAFSA doesn’t cover. This only works for instate colleges/university ( Privates like Notre Dame have their own rules, though) I know it’s somewhat off topic but do other states have similar programs???</p>
<p>(I’m from Indiana and I failed to apply in middle school so you guys can imagine my bad luck.)</p>
<p>greenwitch – I had a similar observation recently. I went to CMU in the 80’s. When I graduated I got a new Toyota Tercel that cost the same as one year of tuition – about $6,000. Compare their current tuition with the cost of a small Toyota. Tuition has skyrocketed comparatively!</p>
<p>Say what you want, but when I saw my EFC (my dad and my college-graduating sister filled out the FAFSA for me since they knew all the information) online the other day, I was shocked. I was under the impression that my dad’s annual income was lower than our EFC. Clearly, it’s not, but I have a hard time imagining that any family (especially mine) would be ‘comfortable’ paying that much for a student’s education.</p>
<p>Even if the formula was changed so that people’s EFCs were lowered, it wouldn’t mean that the colleges would magically have more money to give away. The majority of FA packages would still have loans and gaps in them.</p>
<p>tintao- to qualify for the 21st program your family has to make under 35000 i believe</p>
<p>so from what i’ve gathered, EFC calculators on collegeboard site’s not very reliable is it? Because mine came up to 0 EFC, but my total household income is 50k (including my two working brothers), and my mum has about 50k in savings, half of which available for release in 2011. we dont have any debts. will this amount to a high EFC? as it is, i’m trying to get a loan for 15k per year. </p>
<p>worried i am very.</p>
<p>Yes, U of Chicago is elite.</p>
<p>so from what i’ve gathered, EFC calculators on collegeboard site’s not very reliable is it? Because mine came up to 0 EFC, but my total household income is 50k (including my two working brothers), and my mum has about 50k in savings, half of which available for release in 2011. we dont have any debts. will this amount to a high EFC? as it is, i’m trying to get a loan for 15k per year.</p>
<p>I don’t think you count your brothers’ incomes, nor do you count them in your household if they have their own supporting incomes for FAFSA. I think CSS Profile might be different. </p>
<p>Your mom’s savings sound like some kind of retirement or annuity if there is a disbursement schedule.</p>
<p>Are you a US citizen or green card resident?</p>
<p>Where are you trying to get a $15k loan?</p>
<p>Mine is $61,000… I have no idea how, though, as my family does not have that kind of money to spend for college education.</p>
<p>Mine isn’t that high, but I’m still gonna whine because my family can barely afford to feed us week to week and we have an EFC of around $5000. I thank the lord that UMich uses the CSS Profile too, because I was able to include other information that is ignored by FAFSA.</p>
<p>I am not really here to complain. I started saving for college the month my son was born. When this day came I didn’t want to be in the position of having to tell him he couldn’t go to XYZ college because I couldn’t afford it or to have to rely on financial aid.(recalling an old Charlie Daniels song…I ain’t asking nobody for nothing if I can’t get it on my own.) Come August I am prepared to start writing the checks.</p>
<p>When we started this college search over a year ago, however, there were a couple of things I found that were very different than I expected them to be.</p>
<p>Cost of Private College
I see even today the average cost of a private college reported to be around $33,000. My son has applied to 7 schools,the total cost (tuition, fees, R&B) is not less than $40,000 and a couple exceed $50,000. I don’t know if the reported number is only the tuition amount or my son just found some expensive schools.</p>
<p>EFC is driven by income
Not true in our case, our income is less than $75,000 but we have significant (evidently) assets so our EFC far exceeds the annual cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Note, I had no plans to apply for financial aid but used an online calculator to see the EFC because I had heard that some schools want you to file the FAFSA in order to be considered for scholarships. As it turns out none of his choices require that either.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>I agree that EFC is not driven by income. I think so think that because their home’s equity isn’t included in FAFSA. However, those with assets, savings, etc, will end up with a high EFC.</p>
<p>*Mine is $61,000… I have no idea how, though, as my family does not have that kind of money to spend for college education. *</p>
<p>Your family may have a lot in savings or assets. How much do your colleges cost? Did you apply to financial safety school. </p>
<p>Seriously, unless you made a mistake, you have to have a high income and/or lots of assets to have a $61k EFC. Did you input the numbers? If so, then you probably know the answer as to why your EFC is that high.</p>
<p>My EFC is 24,450…ugh.</p>
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<p>Exactly. We started saving for college as soon as we could, but nothing prepared us for the sticker shock. We knew costs had gone up, sure. But who could be prepared to pay $200K or more? All the schools my daughter is interested in cost in the range of $52K or more and some do not give merit aid. She is not a big school kind of person and our local public is a BIG school. We think we can swing the private school if we have to, but we really weren’t expecting her college education to cost twice as much as our first HOUSE.</p>