Last year my efc=0, this year efc=064302 using estimated income, I don’t understand why EFC=064302
Go back and recheck the numbers that you put in
Did anything change;
did your parents change jobs
Do your parents own their own business
Do your parents own a farm
Does your parents have a load of 44 in the bank / stock/ assets
Do your parents own a second home
If the answer to all of these questions are no, then you have a keyboarding error somewhere on your form
$64302!
Can you print out last year’s completed FAFSA and then compare it side by side to current year?
Maybe you added a few extra zeroes to an income or asset item.
Don’t I need to wait 3 days, I tried and it wouldn’t let me.
did you ask to do a correction? If it won’t let you in you may have to wait for a SAR
How do I ask to do a correction?
You can’t go in and look at what you submitted?
When you can, check for:
extra zeros for income
extra zeros for assets
parent info put in the student’s info section.
In the meantime…
Do you remember what you put in for:
parent income?
parent assets?
student income?
student assets?
household size?
number of students in college?
I tried to make a correction by logging in and it says Current Application Status: Processing
what is a SAR?
SAR stands for Student Aid Report. You will need to wait until the application has finished processing before you can log in to make corrections.
Can you answer these questions…
Do you remember what you put in for:
parent income?
parent assets?
student income?
student assets?
household size?
number of students in college?
It sounds like you added a couple of zeros someplace or left out the decimal points. Like instead of putting $100.00, you put 10000.
Once your FAFSA finsishes processing, you will be able to check.
Did your family income increase…at all?
Icome increased a small amount and college students in the family increased
Thanks everyone, I will wait for the application to process
I would be willing to bet you tried to enter “.00” and it was read as two extra 0’s! You’ll be able to see in a couple days.
With at least 2 in college, that would mean that whatever error you put it, the “total” EFC would be twice that.
About $128,000…which would mean an income of about $300k. If your true income is around $30k, then likely you put in 300000 or something like that.
Have you done the 2nd child’s FAFSA? If not, can you start that one? That one should populate with the info from the “wrong one” so you can see where the error is.
In the confirmation page of FAFSA in eligibility information at the far down says that " The EFC is NOT how much aid you will receive or how much you have to pay for college." So I guess EFC is just a number which means something for FA people and not $$$$$. Am I understand correctly?
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So I guess EFC is just a number which means something for FA people and not $$$$$. Am I understand correctly?
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@MHMdad
FAFSA is just a federal form that provides EFC. The number is almost worthless unless you’re low income…and even then fed aid is very low.
The federal govt has no power to order/demand schools provide the rest. Most schools have little aid to give.
The schools that give the best aid usually use CSS Profile because they want to make sure that all money sources are considered. Most schools do not use CSS because most schools have little aid to give.
Many of us have wished that the term EFC would change to something that is less misleading.
It really is kind of sad to see millions of people spending so much time/effort on FAFSA with the false hope that they’re going to get lots of aid from it. Usually, it’s just small loans.
Thanks mom2, also I found other good source regarding explaining what EFC means: http://www.stratagee.com/resources/efc_quick_reference/1213_efc_quick_reference.html
@MHMdad
I think that link is a bit misleading…
Calculating the Family’s Expected Contribution (EFC)
Regardless of the aid form(s) the student is required to complete and submit as part of the process of applying for financial aid, and after all of the time and information it takes to complete the form(s), it all boils down to three letters, EFC.
You provide your financial information on the aid forms (FAFSA and CSS Profile), submit the forms online to the processing centers for each respective form, and the information from the forms goes into the aid calculations (the Federal Methodology and the Institutional Methodology). The output of those need analysis calculations is the student’s expected family contribution (EFC) toward the cost of college.
The student’s EFC is the minimum amount the student is expected to contribute toward the cost of college.
^^^^ (THIS CAN BE VERY TRUE…unless very large merit is received which is subtracted from COA yielding a small remaining cost)
Thus, EFC represents a dollar amount. It is the “output” of the aid forms and calculations.
Both of the EFC formulas focus primarily on the assets and income of the parents and student, family size and the number of dependent children enrolled in college in a given year to assess the family’s ability to pay for college using the income and assets that they have. And because the two formulas calculate EFC differently, it’s likely that the student’s EFC under each formula will be also be different.
Using a Student’s EFC to Determine the Need for Financial Aid
EFC is used to analyze a students’ need for financial aid using a simple formula that subtracts the student’s expected family contribution (EFC) from a college’s total cost of attendance (Cost of Attendance – EFC = Financial Need).
If a student’s EFC is less than a college’s cost of attendance, then the student qualifies for need-based financial aid.
^^^^ THAT STATEMENT is often misunderstood because the public has been trained to think that “qualifying” = “getting”…because that’s how things usually work (you “qualify” for free lunch, so you get free lunch). BUT…that’s not how it works in the “college world”. You can “qualify” for a LARGE amount of FA…yet only get a $5500 student loans. example: COA = $50k. EFC = $10k. Need = $40k. So that person is QUALIFYING for $40k in need. But, the school has little aid to give, so all he gets is a $5500 loan…and a nearly $35k per year gap. Naturally, many people are puzzled/shocked when their FA pkgs are rather empty after their FAFSA results showed “lots of need”.
Cost of Attendance
Cost of attendance is obviously one of the two variables needed to determine need-based aid eligibility. Cost of attendance is the total cost of enrolling at a college, including tuition, fees, room & board, books, travel and personal expenses.
^^^^ LOOK at each school’s breakdown carefully…there is some game-playing going on. Some don’t bother including much/anything for travel or personal expenses. Some only include the cost of their tiny meal plan. So, it can be hard to compare unless you really look/compare. I’ve seen a couple that only include Tuition, room, and board in their COAs.
So, obviously a school that is either missing some items in their COAs or are under-estimating those items’ costs can appear to be “cheaper”, but actually be more expensive once you add in those inadequacies.