<p>ok so I applied ED at Northwestern and got in. I just looked at my financial aid package rite now. this was an estimate made by the CSS profile. my family's income is about 80,000 per yr.</p>
<p>NU gave me 17,000 grants, 3000 student work, 3000 stafford loans</p>
<p>the expected parental contribution is : 31,000 <em>gasp</em></p>
<p>Is FAFSA going to reduce it? or is there any way to reduce it? we can afford like 25,000 a yr. im just confused as to if I am stuck paying this huge EFC.</p>
<p>Schools that use CSS base their institutional aid on the CSS EFC, not the FAFSA EFC. So no FAFSA will not reduce it. They use the FAFSA EFC to see if you are eligible for any federal aid. An income of $80k is probably too high for any federal grant aid. You should be eligible for Stafford loans though.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, did you run the FAFSA EFC calculator before you applied ED to NU? Did you discuss your calculated EFC with anyone in the financial aid office?</p>
<p>This is why I don’t like ed. Won’t it be likely that his efc will be that for every school yet now it’s too late to apply to many merit schools cuz deadlines have passed for many. 31k is a high efc and how likely can his family pay it when they’re only earning 80k</p>
<p>Are you sure your parents can afford 25k per year with an 80k salary? That’s a big chunk of their take home money unless they already have a lot saved for college. Did assets cause the high efc?</p>
<p>EFC is ridiculous to all but those with the very lowest EFC’s … and those people often find that they end up being expected to pay a bunch, anyway, due to aid gapping. Reality is that there is an expectation that your parents will actually use those savings to pay for school. And they are expected to use current income … and even to borrow, as well. That doesn’t mean that they will choose to do these things. However, that is the underlying principle of need based financial aid … the family is expected to bear the primary responsibility for the cost of a student’s education.</p>
<p>The purpose of the above explanation is to prepare you for what you will likely hear from the aid office when you appeal.</p>
<p>cuz we have money saved…that’s prolly wat caused the high EFC</p>
<p>I’m not sure that online EFC calculators are very accurate when a family has a decent income ($80k) and a high amount of savings/investments/assets/etc. </p>
<p>What do the rest of you think???</p>
<p>I agree that $25k is the MAX you can afford. I’m concerned that there will be years when your family won’t be able to come up with the $25k because some other major family expense surfaces. </p>
<p>My kids went to private schools for grade school and high school. I know that it was virtually impossible for families who made under $100k a year to put two kids thru private high school (about $25k total) at the same time. That would be what your parents would be facing with one kid in college. </p>
<p>Are they certain that they can provide $25k for 4 straight years?</p>
<p>ya using savings and possibly some light private loans, they can afford 25K for 4 straight yrs…but 30K gets a bit excessive. even using savings…its too much…let’s see how this appeal situation goes</p>
<p>will I have to do teh appealing or can my dad…cuz im not good when it comes to finances =P</p>
<p>If Northwestern considers your home equity, and if your parents have significant equity in their home, then this might be an explanation for the difference in their calculated EFC versus the one you and your parents obtained from the FAFSA calculator. I’ve looked on the Northwestern website and don’t see anything about home equity or other areas where their calculation differs from FAFSA. But clearly they use other information and/or percentages than FAFSA does, and this is something to discuss with the financial aid office so you can understand it.</p>
<p>The online FAFSA calculators are typically close to the actual EFC calculated by FAFSA, but they’re all a little out of date since some changes have been made for 2010. There’s no way that an online FAFSA calculator will come up with a Profile school’s exact calculation of institutional need since each school uses the Profile data (home equity, business value, cars even!) according to their own formulas.</p>
<p>With an income of $80K/year and assets of around $400,000, FAFSA will generate an EFC of around $22K (that’s an estimate only; the OP will need to check his or her own math). The OP hasn’t said what his/her family savings are (it’s ok, they don’t need to be posted here) but use the $400K as a sanity check against actual savings to see if the ballpark EFC of $22K that you originally calculated is still valid.</p>
<p>I’d suggest to the OP that you make the first call to the financial aid office, and then let your father take it from there if you’re not comfortable discussing finances (and really, what 17-year-old has a thorough knowledge of his parents’ financial situation?)</p>
<p>Best of luck - let us know how things work out for you.</p>