<p>I was accepted into my top school today, and I decided to finally check what my EFC was.
It came out to just under 26k. While my father feels "flattered" by the federal government, our AGI is only about 80k/year without any exceptional assets, living in a fairly high-cost area (San Jose, CA) with three dependents (including myself).</p>
<p>Does this pretty much make me illegible for anything other than loans? :(</p>
<p>That sounds about right. Cost of living is not considered as where you live is a choice. You are not eligible for Pell grants. </p>
<p>You have not looked at this before now?</p>
<p>Not only is that not particularly high, but your EFC might not really mean anything anyway. It is a lower limit of what you are likely to be expected to pay. Is your school known to meet 100% of need? </p>
<p>If you haven’t looked at this before, how careful were you with the financial aid process? Did you time the submission of your FAFSA for a part of the month when bank accounts balances would be lowest, or the day after paychecks were deposited? Too late to change that now, but this is information you should have been working with from the beginning of your search, not once you got your first acceptance.</p>
<p>Whatever you school costs above 26k might be met with loans or grants, depending on your school. In the best case, if they cover your need with grants, I hope your father (with your help obviously) can afford that $26,000. Otherwise, you have more work to do to find someplace affordable.</p>
<p>Also, look at it this way . . . only one-third of the EFC is expected to come from your parents’ current earnings. Another third should come from savings, and the final third is expected to come from loans against your parents’ future earnings. Harsh, I know, but that’s the expectation. Anyway, that would reduce the annual payment from your $80k AGI to about $9k, which is probably much more manageable. If your parents don’t have the savings, though, or the ability to borrow, this formula goes to heck in a handbasket!</p>
<p>Your family is in the income range where it is tough to support kids at college and high school aged kids, and yet is a good figure. More families would love to have that income figure. Sounds great to them. But throw in their ages, what they need to start doing, the needs of kids coming up towards college time, a high cost of living area, and it’s not enough. It never is, by the way. Look to see where the income levels need to be for getting some state aid. CA has some state funds for college, and I think you are on the edge income wise to qualify for any of them.</p>
<p>As others have said, the EFC in terms of state schools does not mean a whole lot other than eligibility for PELL grants and those are for the absolutely lowest incomes,and they max out at about $5600 for a zero EFC. The rest of the guaranteed money is in the forms of loans which you can still get, just not on a subsidized basis.</p>
<p>I disagree with those above. That EFC is high for that AGI. It should be about $17k or lower. Usually, with a family of 4, EFC doesn’t reach $25k until income is about $100k or there are assets, or family size is small (like 1 parent, 1 child).</p>
<p>I think either the assets are the problem, or maybe retirement contributions, or something else is kicking up that EFC.</p>
<p>Or…is there only ONE adult in the home? If so, that also kicks up the EFC since adults have larger exemptions. So, a family of 4 with one parent will have a higher EFC than a family of 4 with two parents.</p>
<p>Also, if you do only have one parent, then asset protection is MUCH lower.</p>
<p>I see that you got accepted to UCLA. Is your parents’ income under $80k? If so, then you qualify for Blue and Gold promise. </p>
<p>You need to go over your FAFSA numbers…there may be a mistake or you have more assets than you thought.</p>
<p>What was your family’s GROSS income…typically EFC is 1/4 to 1/3 of GROSS (not AGI) income if you are trying to guestimate.</p>
<p>The balance in retirement accounts is NOT included on the FAFSA anywhere. However, pretax contributions made in 2012 are added back as income when the EFC per FAFSA is computed.</p>
<p>Assets could be the issue (regular savings, etc). Primary residence should not have been included on the FAFSA either.</p>
<p>Check to make sure you didn’t make a mistake when entering the numbers.</p>
<p>The EFC seems a little high to me too. But if there is only one parent, the asset allowance is only $10-15k, so relatively low assets could still be counted, though only at 5.6%. That plus a relatively high retirement contribution could explain an $80k AGI with that EFC.</p>
<p>EFC does seem a little high.</p>
<p>Are there significant assets like a second or vacation home? Remember first home does not count. </p>
<p>Does the student have any assets? </p>
<p>Also did the student have a job where they earned over like $6,000?</p>
<p>Where is that formula for EFC? The OP can run the numbers through there if he can get it, and by playing around with it see what is bringing it up.</p>
<p>
I agree about the asset protection. A one parent family has less than half the asset protection than s two parent family with a same age parent. It does not make a difference as far as income protection. The income protection tables are just based on the number in the family and how many are in college. They don’t differentiate between adult or none adult. It can make a small difference to the employment expense allowances if there are 2 parents and only one is employed. Other than that and the asset allowance, the exemptions for one versus two adults are the same. </p>
<p>But the EFC does seem high for the AGI unless, as others have said, there are high retirement account contributions - these will be added back to the AGI. Health savings account contributions will also be added back I believe. And of course, high unprotected assets (and any student assets) will also have an impact.</p>
<p>you can google FAFSA EFC formula to get the formula</p>
<p>* It does not make a difference as far as income protection. *</p>
<p>I think it does. If I remember correctly, adults in the household (parents) are given a larger exemption amount that children are. I think Kelsmom said that each parent has about a $8k or $9k exemption, while children (up to a certain number) have a much lower exemption.</p>
<p>That’s why a family of 3 with 2 parents and 1 child will have a lower EFC than a family of 3 with 1 parent and 2 kids with the same financial picture. </p>
<p>the reason that parents have a larger exemption is because there is an assumption that they have higher expenses…cars, insurance, etc. It makes sense, an adult does cost a family more money in essential expenses (even tho parents often choose to spend a whole bunch of $$ on their kids’ optional expenses…lol)</p>
<p>If you look at the EFC formula (easy to find with google), the FAFSA income protection tables are based solely on family size and the number in college. They don’t mention the composition of the family at all (how many adults, how many kids), but go up with the household size and down with the number in college. Other than the (very unfair) asset protection issue, I’ve never heard that a one parent family gets a higher EFC than a two parent family with the same income. (though the source of the income does make a difference - earned vs unearned for instance).</p>
<p>Seems a little high to me as well, when our income (AGI + untaxed income) was in that range, out EFC was 16-18. BUT, other things can affect that number, for instance substantial retirement contributions during the year (not the amount in the accounts), student income in excess of 6k, student assets, other untaxed income that gets added to the AGI. </p>
<p>Agree with the recommendation to do the calculations by hand and see what you come up with. Use the DRT, too. Then you’ll know the income numbers are correct.</p>
<p>Here’s the formula: <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091312EFCFormulaGuide1314.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091312EFCFormulaGuide1314.pdf</a></p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>According to that, when you add add’l family numbers (greater than the table shows,) you 4100 income protection allowance. Unless something has changed, I remember Kelsmom saying that once a family has X number of children, the protection allowance isn’t as much. For example, a family who might have 9 children wouldn’t get a 4100 allowance for each child. And, I do remember something about adults having a larger exemption because adults cost more money. But, maybe she was wrong or something has changed.</p>
<p>The increase of $4100 for each family member over 6 is less than the increases for 6 or under. That would match what Kelsmom said.</p>
<p>The EFC definitely sounds too high … unless there are significant assets. It should be around $16-17k, off the top of my head. </p>
<p>Did you have to send tax forms to the school? If so, and if you made a mistake on your FAFSA that would have inflated your EFC, the school will catch & fix it when they review your tax return info. </p>
<p>When will you get your financial aid package?</p>
<p>
In the 7 years that we were doing FAFSA (all over now happily), the protection allowances were always based just on family size, not on family composition & number in college. I’m wondering whether you are thinking of the income protection for parents of dependents vs. that for independent students with no kids. First time Independent students often get a surprise at how low their income protection is as they think it will be similar to what a parent would get.</p>