Do I qualify for need-based aid?

Paying for College
1

<p>I was wondering if I qualified for any type of financial aid.</p>

<p>My dad makes about $80,000 a year and my mom does not work. I have a brother 5 years younger. I was told that my estimated EFC was around $32,000, but isn't that a bit ridiculous? There is some money is my savings account, but according to my parents that's all the money that is going towards my education since we live in a high living cost area.</p>

<p>I'm looking to go to schools like Rice, Northwestern and Notre Dame.</p>

<p>thanks!</p>

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<p>Your EFC based on income is probably $16,000, and you should have less than $100 or you'll lose 20 cents/yr for every dollar you have in savings.</p>

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<p>I doubt it u'll qualify for need-based aids....but u shud contact the financial aid office of each college u wanna apply....policies r different in every place.</p>

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<p>Runner - your EFC is calculated using not just income but assets. If your parents have high assets that may account for the high EFC. Also your own income and assets may affect the EFC (the EFC consists of a parent portion and a student portion).</p>

<p>For FAFSA certain assets are protected (IRAs, primary home) from the EFC calculation. Profile schools ask for a lot more information and assets that may not be taken into account for FAFSA may be for profile. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.finaid.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.finaid.org&lt;/a> has excellent information about financial aid. They also have EFC calculators. <a href="http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml&lt;/a>
I have found these to be spot on for the FAFSA EFC - I do not know about the profile one. Try running your numbers to give you an idea of your EFC. </p>

<p>If your parents have money saved for college how it is saved makes a big difference in how it is treated by FAFSA. For instance 529 accounts are reported as parent assets on FAFSA which is better for financial aid as only 5.6% goes to the EFC. Other saving in your name are reported as student assets which means 20% goes to the EFC. This is for FAFSA - some of your schools use profile and set different rules for themselves. Good luck.</p>

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<p>I believe all of these schools use the Profile in addition to the FAFSA. That being the case, your home equity will factor into your EFC calculation. In other words, if your family has significant home equity, there will be an expectation that some of that is available to help fund a college education. Your sibling 5 years younger will not factor much into your finaid calculations (other than making yours a family of four).</p>