Hello
I got an email saying that I have an EFC of 000010
It also said my estimated pell grant is 6145
I am applying for a community college in New Jersey
What exactly does EFC 000010 mean? Does that mean I have to pay $100?
No. The EFC determines your eligibility for a Pell Grant. Yours is almost $0, so you get nearly full Pell. That has nothing to do with how much you have to pay for college. What are the estimated costs of the college (tuition, fees, books)? Will you be commuting from home? How much will that cost? You can take the $5500 federal student loan. That and Pell may be enough to cover a cc.
For my schedule in the fall about $2500, the books are calculated once the semester starts and i will be commuting from home
I got the full amount last semester. The only difference was for 2016 I didn’t work but in 2017 I did.
Have you received your financial aid package from the school yet?
not for the 2019-20 semester yet
If your EFC was $0 for your first year and it’s $10 this year then it will make your Pell Grant slightly lower, but you’ll still be responsible for paying the cost of tuition and fees. If the tuition and fees are $2500/semester, you’ll owe $2500 per semester. You can use the Pell Grant (~$3072/semester) to pay it. That should leave you about $500/semester to put toward books.
How are you covering your costs for books and transportation? If you work this summer you can probably raise ~$3k.
well i usually pay a relatively small amount for books and stuff it’s usually free in the library or the most $30 to buy/rent. The books aren’t a heavy issue for me considering I do get financial aid for my books as well. For example, the max amount of financial aid you can get for the 19-20 semester is about $6195 according to FAFSA and they sent me a projected amount that I will likely be receiving which is about $6145. So, I shouldn’t be too worried. I was just kind of thrown off because I had never actually checked the EFC.
Along with the pell grant i also did receive njfams aid. forgot to mention that
Yes, it can be confusing. The FAFSA EFC is really just used to determine Pell eligibility. It doesn’t have anything to do with how much you’ll actually be expected to pay.
I’m just scared that they will try and accuse me of putting false/inaccurate information honestly. Like I’m honestly just doing it to the best of my availability.
Why would they accuse you of dishonesty? Your Pell actually went down a little. If you completed the form correctly, it won’t be an issue. If you made an innocent mistake on it you just submit a correction.