<p>WHat is the relationship between EFC and the cost a student pays for college?</p>
<p>I DO KNOW that if EFC is equal to or greater than a college's stated COA, then the cost of college for the student = COA.</p>
<p>WHat I am unsure of is when the EFC is LESS THAN a college's COA, what is the cost of college to the student?</p>
<p>I am also interested in knowing - does EFC affect how much of the financial aid will be loans and how much will be grants?</p>
<p>I am asking because it looks like the college is asking us to pay as much money junior year when our EFC is $2,000 as when our EFC was $20,000 during freshman year (except for a $3,500 PELL grant that we are now qualified for). After freshman year, I lost my job and our EFC went down dramatically.</p>
<p>Your EFC should be viewed as the MINIMUM you will be paying for the year of college. Most schools do not guarantee to meet your full need (the difference between your COA and your EFC). There will be a gap in what they award you. The amount of loans you are offered will depend on the policies of your school…not your EFC. Some schools package financial aid without loans…most DO include loans in the package. The amount of the Stafford loan increases and that increase will be part of your package if you received a Stafford as a freshman.</p>
<p>If your school does not guarantee to meet financial need, you might not see an increase in your aid…with the possible exception of eligibility for a partial Pell grant. With an EFC of $2000, you should be receiving a portion of the Pell grant which you would not have been entitled to with an EFC of $20,000. Did you get that?</p>
<p>Is that $2000 FAFSA EFC reflective of a submitted FAFSA to your college or is that an estimate you got using one of the online calculators?</p>
<p>Totally depends on the college. The few that meet need adjust and meet your need. Most won’t change a thing other than what you’re entitled to from the Government. They use their funds to bring in freshmen.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that all the FAFSA EFC does is determine if you are qualified for the PELL when it comes to actual money for college. Yes, one can also get subsidized loans and maybe work study if the EFC is less than the COA, but in terms of grant money, it really comes down to the PELL. If you are Pell qualified, there may be other things that you can get such as state grants, if your state gives out any, HEOG, Perkins loans if your school participates in those programs. </p>
<p>Those schools that are the most generous tend to want more information than what FAFSA asks, and they tap sources that FAFSA may not include in calculating the EFC. If your parents are divorced or if you have siblings with savings, high home equity, the contribution expected may well be higher than your EFC.</p>
<p>Is this a public or private school? From what I’ve seen, privates do not give much additional aid unless they are among those who guarantee to meet need (with or without loan caps). Sometimes they only offer more Plus loans, which is not helpful at all in times of financial need! On the other hand, public schools tend to increase aid when the EFC drops into Pell-eligible range - sometimes it’s only due to the grants that cpt mentioned, but often they have other small ($1-5K), unadvertised grants and programs designed to help make a college degree affordable…at least for the residents of their state, that is! If the school participates in any of the federal TRIO programs like Student Support Services, that may be a potential source of more grant aid, higher paying internships, etc. Good luck!</p>
<p>yes, we recvd a Pell grant of 3,500 when our EFC went down to $2,000. Is that the max for a Pell grant?</p>
<p>This is a real EFC submitted to the FA office of the college.</p>
<p>So might the main reason to go through FAFSA, for most colleges, be to determine whether you can get a $3,500 Pell grant and Stafford loans - both Federally funded vehicles? It doesn’t look like the college price is affected by a lower EFC.</p>
<p>It is a private LAC, and ,yes, all it asked for was to fill out FAFSA - nothing else. Does this , then, indicate a less generous college? COnversely, <em>might</em> it be a sign of a <em>more</em> generous college is they ask for more financial info? We have a rising sr in HS now and we are going to be a lot more sensitive to this dynamic.</p>
<p>/quote/The few that meet need adjust and meet your need…/quote/</p>
<p>/quote/ …unless they are among those who guarantee to meet need /quote/</p>
<p>Can someone provide a list of the colleges that claim to meet need?</p>
<p>EFC has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how much college will cost to the student.</p>
<p>EFC simply determines whether or not the student is eligible for federally-funded student aid programs (Stafford/Perkins loans; Pell/ACG grants; work-study). </p>
<p>Federal aid eligibility is determined as follows:</p>
<p>If the Student’s COA - after subtracting out all non-federal grants and scholarships, is LESS than EFC, the student is not eligible for federal aid.</p>
<p>If the student’s COA is MORE than the EFC, the student is eligible for some aid. The amount of aid depends on whether the EFC is low enough to make the student eligible for federal grants, and the amount of the gap between the student’s COA and EFC</p>
<p>So, for example, if EFC=$10,000 and the student’s COA (after accounting for all scholarships) is $12,000 – the student might be eligible for $2000 of work study or subsidized loans. Even though the Stafford loan system authorizes loans in larger amounts, in this example the student’s COA is not high enough to allow for more aid. </p>
<p>Colleges can do whatever they want when it comes to meeting need. They can decide not to meet the need of their students, they can meet some arbitrarily determined definition of need, they can decide to structure their aid package around the FAFSA EFC - they can do better than the FAFSA EFC with their own formula – or they can give scholarships in any amount they want to non-needy students (such as athletic or merit scholarship).</p>
<p>idic, I think you’ve found a somewhat stingy private LAC…I know some that only require FAFSA and still give their own money to low EFC kids in the form of need-based aid. Have you tried to appeal for more aid?</p>
<p>Here’s a list of schools that guarantee to meet need with no/low loans, the qualifications for receiving this guarantee (ie. income, residency, etc.) vary by school:</p>
<p>Yes, for an EFC of $2000 that Pell is the maximum you would receive for the academic year. </p>
<p>Schools that meet full need…there is a list that has been posted here someplace…hopefully someone will provide a link. They include all the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Amherst, Williams, UVA, UNC-CH, Georgetown, and many that I simply can’t think of right now. These are highly competitive schools with very large endowments. Many accept 10% or less of those who apply. These schools offer NO merit aid at all, only need base. The first hurdle is to be accepted.</p>
<p>And…they do not necessarily offer this generous aid to transfer students. This generous aid is institutional money (their money) and they can award it as they please. Most of these schools require either the Profile or a school financial aid application form in addition to the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Yes…the FAFSA is used primarily to determine the awarding of federally funded need based aid. Some schools do use the FAFSA only to determine the awarding of their instititutional money. BUT most of these school also do not guarantee to meet your full need. </p>
<p>OP…have you spoken to the financial aid office at all…to a person? You might want to do so. Many times, the aid awarded to incoming freshman (except for entitlements like the Pell) don’t change. BUT the school may be unaware of your unemployment. Especially if you are still unemployed, this is something the school MIGHT consider when determining whether they can increase your kiddo’s need based grant aid for the coming year.</p>
<p>The term EFC is very misleading and should be changed.</p>
<p>It is really just a figure that tells colleges whether you qualify for federal aid (which is not a lot of money). The max Pell is about $5500, but you have to have a 0 EFC to get that.</p>
<p>Colleges are not obligated to meet need, and most can’t. That’s why people say that EFC is often the minimum that you have to pay…typically you have to pay more.</p>
<p>Full need schools are the hardest to get into. They tend to be top schools.</p>
<p>I agree, mom2collegekids. Too many folks thing that the number is truly something you are expected to pay for college and that somehow the rest of the cost will magically appear for you. The financial aid system is really crazy. </p>
<p>I tell people that FAFSA is a clearinghouse of sorts that really just checks out if you are eligible for government monies. With a very low EFC, a student can get PELL grants. Sometimes…, SOMETIMES, students can find other funds are also there for PELL eligible students, but many times not. The government also offers Stafford loans to just about everyone up to the cost of attendance less any other aid/scholarships and the interest rates would be subsidized for those whose EFC is less than the the COA. Any thing else is dependent on the school. Work study, HEOGH, Perkins, SMART, state monies are all dependent on whether the school has those funds available. </p>
<p>Basically, our government has funds available for all needy students to go to local pubic colleges When you start looking at private options, however, that is on your parents’ and your tabs. The amounts the government provides in the way of help is no where near what private schools charge. So it is for high school and lower grades as well. No one is guaranteed a private school education. </p>
<p>However, those students with top academic profiles and/or with other things that schools want may well get money from the schools themselves. That is an option students can pursue, but by no means is anything guaranteed. </p>
<p>If kids and parents looked at college the same way they do high schools in terms of public/ private, there would be less confusion about financial aid. Yes, a private high school can give a kid a scholarship. But few kids qualify for that kind of money, and enough financial aid to go to a private school is hard to get as well. College money is a bit easier to get, but to get $60k ,which is what some of the most expensive schools sport as their COAs, is like going for a lottery ticket.</p>
<p>saw this article today. reminded me of this thread…reminds us that there is a double BS quotient in the EFC</p>
<p>1st), the EFC is an unreasonable amount for typical (middle class, especially) families since it is based on older tables and economic landscape</p>
<p>2) For salt upon insult, as was pointed out in this thread, EFC is really MEFC, meaning the MINIMUM expected contribution - for 97 percent of colleges, you have to pay MORE than the EFC! </p>
<p>We should redress how we distribute our public monies. Education of the greatest number in our country, with research and innovation, is really the best way to lead us out of our current economic quagmire. Making it well nigh impossible for most to get an education, or , if the education is had, placing a untenable financial burden on the student as he or she goes into the work place, will not lead to prosperity in our nation, but will lead to a continued spiraling downward.</p>
<p>There are no schools that meet need that just require FAFSA. </p>
<p>I think the OP found a typical LAC, not a stingy one. The vast, vast majority have limited FA funds and will rarely use them to keep an upperclassman whose financial situation has gotten worse.</p>
<p>It has been reported that Chapman University in California meets full need…it is a FAFSA only school. Loans are included in their financial aid packages.</p>
<p>the box that say efc over has a star inside it does this mean that there still processing my information </p>
<hr>
<p>Does it have a number in it, or just an asterisk? If it has a number with an asterisk, it means you have been selected for verification … your school may opt not to verify you, but they most likely will do so. If there is no number, then there may be something wrong with your FAFSA - there should be a message that says it couldn’t be processed & why. For example, if you need a parent PIN & did not provide one, an EFC will not be calculated.</p>
<p>This is not true…almost every school in the country meets need for at least some of their students. They simply don’t GUARANTEE to meet need and that’s why it’s so difficult to predict what aid packages will look like. There are FAFSA only LAC’s that have made accessibility for low income students a priority and, while some of the aid was merit-based, they also added even more institutional grants when the EFC dropped in subsequent years.</p>