<p>Is there any way to estimate how much tuition will be paid at a specific college, knowing the EFC?</p>
<p>And is the EFC the amount my family is expected to pay for tuition only, or for housing and everything?</p>
<p>Kristina,</p>
<p>GREAT question. I was also wondering what exactly does EFC cover? </p>
<p>Anyone out there know this answer?</p>
<p>EFC (Expected Family Contribution) is the final cost for you/family after deducting the FinAid package (grants, student loans, work study, etc.) received from a college.</p>
<p>EFC is how much your family is expected to pay towards the cost of attendance (COA), which generally includes tuition, fees, room & board, books and travel. Here are caveats to remember:</p>
<ol>
<li> Not all schools give FA for 100% of need, there may be a 'gap' between EFC + the FA you receive from the school and COA.</li>
<li> Even if a school covers 100% of need, your FA package will be some combination of grants, loans and work study.<br></li>
<li> If you are applying to schools that use Profile, they may use different calculations and come up with different EFCs.</li>
</ol>
<p>x-posted with rovision, that only applies to schools that give FA for 100% of need.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. For schools that do cover 100% of aid (I have Dartmouth in mind, if that helps), I can expect to pay the EFC, then?</p>
<p>Right! COA - FA = EFC in this case</p>
<p>No. Dartmouth (and most other 100% of need schools) uses the Profile, which considers a lot of assets that the FAFSA doesn't. It has its own way of calculating your need, which can vary significantly from the EFC you determined by FAFSA.</p>
<p>You can get a ballpark by using some of the financial aid calculators and choosing the "institutional methodology". That is a ballpark figure as well, and is unlikely to be exact. But probably somewhere in the neighborhood of what you would need to pay.</p>
<p>Remember too that some of your aid may be in the form of work-study, and if the schools have not signed onto the "Harvard plan" (eliminating loans), you could find your aid includes a significant amount of loans as well.</p>
<p>I would have said yes, because after reading my earlier post, I'd assume the OP was talking about her Profile EFC from Dartmouth ;). There is one other thing that may be applicable, and that is if there is any self-help portion of the FA package that the college expects you to pay beyond EFC, usually from summer earnings. Also, remember that there can be additional costs beyond COA, such as freshman move in costs, travel costs beyond what the college estimates, single room, etc.</p>
<p>Kristina,</p>
<p>Have you tried Dartmouth's "Cost Estimator" on their website? Here's a link in case you have not had a chance to do so:
Cost</a> Calculator</p>
<p>Entomom, how do I view the Profile EFC for particular schools? I logged into the submitted Profile thing, but I can't find anything about EFCs.</p>
<p>Thanks mountains, I'll do that.</p>
<p>The CSS Profile does not provide an EFC and every school uses the Profile information to reach different conclusions.</p>
<p>There isn't an equivalent to the FAFSA SAR for Profile since schools use different data and calculations. You find out your EFC when you receive your FA package from each school. mountain's suggestion is good and will give you the best estimate for Dartmouth. For other Profile schools, either use their calculator (Princeton, Amherst, etc.) or run the Instituional calculations on College Board or finaid.com to get an estimate.</p>
<p>x-posted with dntw8up</p>