I’ve been running financial aid calculators on various colleges using the two kids in college and an income of around 74K for a family of 5 with about 7K worth of assets, and it seemed like the estimates were similar to when I ran them before with one in college.
I figured our EFC would be a little lower than last year, being that we only had one in college. Last’s year’s income was about 76K and we had about 9-10K worth of assets. Last year’s EFC was about $9500. I just did the FAFSA based on estimates using pay stub, etc. and our EFC came out to $4390. That seems really low. Did I do something wrong? That seems way too low.
Your income was less. Your EFC for one kid was about $9000. Now your EFC for each kid is about $4500. Right? Sounds right to me.
I just didn’t know it would be halved (or a little more since our income went down just a tad). But yes, right!
Sounds right to me. Pell grant -eligible!
Will either of your kids study abroad by summer of 2016? If so, be sure to have them apply for the Benjamin Gilman study abroad scholarship. Available only for Pell grant recipients.
Just remember, however. This is for the FAFSA…and will be used for federally funded aid. Any school that uses the Profile will exoect your portion for each kiddo to be 60% of that total…not 50%. So your actual family contribution at a Profile,schools will be higher than your EFC in all likelihood.
That makes sense, Thumper. When I run calculators on schools that meet 100% of need, there’s a huge variance of what we would expect to owe. The lowest amount was about $700; the highest was about $16,000. All those schools claim to meet 100% of need. Go figure!
Madison, that’s a cool program! I’ve never heard of it. As far as I know, neither son has any plans to travel abroad, but I’ll be sure and confirm that with them.
Yes, the Pell Grant amount was about $1400.
Schools have varying formulas. They consider many things. Some have a student contribution also. Some don’t. You have cast a pretty wide net.
Good luck!!
Yes my daughter received a Gilman grant for several thousand which really helped for airfare and expenses that made travel abroad possible.