<p>I just finished the FAFSA and my EFC came out at about $6,000. I thought it was more than it would be, considering my family's income is a bit over 50k combined for 4 people. </p>
<p>However, I was wondering about how much more should the CSS Profile EFC come out to be ?. My parents only have about $30k in their 401k (for the two of them) and about $35k in home equity. There's no other savings from me or them... I'm paranoid that they'll boost the Profile EFC because of the 401K and/or the home equity. </p>
<p>Is anybody familiar with this stuff ?</p>
<p>money in the 401K doesnt get noted for available funds* except*
for instance- if you are filing for the 2007-2008 year- money from 2006 is considered.
So- money that is put into 401K in 2006, will be added back to available income.</p>
<p>$35K in these days of increasing home prices isn't much actually.
There is a formula for figuring what isnt considered, I believe you have to have more than $100K in equity for it to be considered.
$6K seems low actually for EFC for a before tax income of over $50K
Our experience has been that it is anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of income.
It isn't meant to come out of income alone- it also comes out of savings and future earnings</p>
<p>your family has an automatic Asset Protection Allowance that is approximately $50k. Unless you have a lot of $$ in savings accounts/investments, the home equity shouldn't be much of a factor. But, you can obtain a good feel for the actual numbers by using the Profile estimator on collegeboard's website.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Nope we don't have anything basically on savings/investments/accounts. Just about 30k on 401k, 35k home equity and my dad's income... I was worried how much they were going to increase my EFC with the institutional method if they thought we had a lot of money/savings because of the 401k</p>
<p>I know it differs for each school, but I was wondering how the EFC actually ends up corresponding to the aid/loan package from the school.</p>
<p>Also, is the EFC money that has to come directly out of pocket or can you use loans to cover that amount?</p>
<p>EFC can come from loans. Just be aware that the colleges' aid packages are likely to have loans too. That is where the tricky business starts. You are not guaranteed to have that EFC met, even from FAFSA only schools. All that EFC is really good for is to determine your eligibility for certain govt monies. THereafter, it is worth very little. Most FAFSA only schools do NOT meet 100% of EFC. In fact, I don't know one that guarantees to do so. So you then have PROFILE and then can do their numbers any way they please to come up with their institutional need figure. If you are eyeing a school that guarantees 100% of need, even then you cannot be out of the woods, as the package will be made up of loans, maybe work study as well as grants. If the package is primarily loans and workstudy, it can pose a problem if you were planning to borrow to meet some of your EFC and work during the school year for the rest, since that takes up some of your plans.</p>