EFC makes no sense to me

The EFC form says our expected family contribution is-get this-237002. Did I miss a digit or are they saying we can afford $237,002 per year?
If it weren’t so serious I’d be laughing right now…

You need to check your FAFSA LINE BY LINE.

It’s very likely YOU either added a digit (like an extra 0), or placed a decimal point in the wrong spot.

E.g. $10,000 might have been entered as $100,000. Or something like that.

Also, make sure you didn’t put parent income and assets in the student spot.

First, I like your name :slight_smile:

Second, no an EFC doesn’t tell you how much you’ll pay. It mainly tells you whether or not you’re eligible for federal FA like Pell and subsidized loans. You will not pay more than the total list price of any U (which, currently, is in the neighborhood of $70k for the TIPPY TOP most expensive schools).

Take Thumper’s advice but if you come from a family with high income, the number may be right. We can’t tell anything without a sense of your parents’ and yours (or only yours if you’re independent) financial picture- income, assets, etc.

The annual income income would need to be in the million dollar range for a $200,000 plus EFC…OR the family would need large assets…which is very possible.

Either your family is wealthy or you made a mistake entering the data.

I want to have $200k+ EFC if I can. :wink:

             I imagine it must be an error, as if you were in that kind of bracket, you wouldn't  run a FAFSA even for funsies. 

^ Not at all true. It’s certainly not at all rare for a kid/family with an income that would land that sort of EFC to come on here wondering why they’re not getting FA.

Either way, we won’t know until the OP chimes back in.

@VitaSackville

So…did you figure this out yet!

Check to see of you include your retirement assets. You shouldn’t include them.

We fat fingered our annual retirement contribution and our EFC went from reasonable to “OMG - do we even make that much in a year?”

The OP hasn’t been back since he made the thread. Maybe he figured out the problem.