Last year my oldest entered college. My EFC was $35k. This year my twin daughters are entering and the reported EFC is $20k for each.
Is this really an Expected “Student” Contribution and not a family/household #?
And I have always heard that the EFC # is divided among the # of kids in school – so it essentially went from $35k to $60k in total. This makes no sense to me.
No, my income did not increase significantly.
Is this your FAFSA efc? Or is this what the college is saying you will need to pay?
This is the FAFSA EFC.
efc does mean Family contribution, not individual student contribution. If they are all slightly different, it is because of student earnings or assets…
Do your younger children have assets? Did they all work last year? If not, and your income didn’t go up, you may have entered something wrong. It should be close to half for 2 kids, a third for 3, although it wouldn’t surprise me if your number was $15k per child. It does seem the EFC is not quite 50% for having 2 in college.
They have maybe $1k in the bank and worked summer jobs last year. The girls’ SAR each has efc of 20,552 and my son’s is 20,452. Again, this adds up to over $60k, compared to the $35k last year for just my son. It doesn’t seem right to me. I did call the FAFSA help line and they were no help.
You need to check all of these FAFSA forms to make sure you indicated three students would be attending college.
And check all the numbers to make sure they are accurately entered.
I would double and triple check all 3 SARs. Since the 3 EFCs seem appropriately almost equal, there is likely something in the parent info influencing all 3. Yes, the parent contribution to EFC should be divided in thirds. Look for extra zeros in any entries. Compare your eldest’s SAR from last year with the one from this year.
You can also work through the fafsa formula manually using the following link:
http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/090214EFCFormulaGuide1516.pdf
Compare last year’s entries on parent income and assets with this year’s entries. It should help you zero in on what has changed. (If your financial circumstances are pretty much the same, all of the entries except number in college should also be about the same.)
I will have three in college in the Fall as well, my EFC last yr for one was 41+, for each of the 3 the EFC was 14+, good luck. But we are a family of 7, if that has anything to do with it.
When you did the 2nd and 3rd children’s FAFSA, did you let the forms auto-populate from the 1st child’s FAFSA?
Something is very wrong. It seems like you only indicated that 2 kids will be in college on each FAFSA.
Also did your son receive scholarships? Did you maybe report them on the parent part of fafsa?
Thanks for confirming this doesn’t sound accurate. I’ll double check all the inputs.
Please let us know what the error was so that we can better suggest for others with a similar odd result.
I doubled checked the input, and from what I can tell, it is accurate.
The only oddity that I can tell is that on my son’s 2015-16 FAFSA, I get an error in the field for # of kids in college. It uses the word “error” but gives the reason that the # jumped significantly from the prior year (as in from 1 to 3). Yes! That is the point! It is accurate, grrrr… The help desk was no help, and just wanted to get me off the phone. But as far as I can tell, it is processed with that #.
Well, that is likely the problem. It isn’t calculating that there are 3 in college. It seems to be calculating that there are two in college.
I suspect that the system has now got something in place to prevent people from suddenly claiming “extra sibs” in college just to get more aid from a lower EFC.
Obviously, those with younger kids who are twins or triplets will have a “jump” in number once those younger kids go to college.
Have all 3 FAFSAs processed?
All 3 have processed. The twins’ FAFSAs accepted the “3”. My son’s is the problem. They each report a similar # of ~$20k.
I just completed the FAFSA worksheet by hand and get $15.8k per child, which makes much more sense to me. Now, to get a bureaucrat to understand and help… I may ask my son’s financial aid office for help.
The last two or 3 years I’ve gotten an “error” that my income changed significantly from the previous year. Yeah, true but it happens, but FAFSA does accept it and moves on.
Are you saying your son’s SAR doesn’t show 3 kids in college? If that was the problem, the 3 EFCs wouldn’t be so close in amount. His would be quite a bit higher. I’d check the numbers again on the SARs on the parental side since the 3 EFCs are so close in amount.
I did verify last night that the form did accept the 3 kids in college. Still can’t figure out how the total this year is over $60k when last year is was $35k. My wife will be dropping by the Financial Aid office at my son’s college today to see if they can figure it out.
Did you calculate your efc this year with just one in college just to see what it would be? Is it 60k?
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Still can't figure out how the total this year is over $60k when last year is was $35k.
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Did you have any income from unearned sources…any new assets?? For an EFC of $60k, your income would likely have to be about $180k (with modest assets)…or less income and greater assets.