<p>lol My mom made $5200 and I made $4100 last year, my mom got laid off and has had trouble finding a good job and myself have been working a lot during my senior year of high school, we've both been struggling and my life has really sucked the last 11 years so I hope this is good news. I just filled out my FAFSA and they reported a EFC of 00000, what does that mean? Will my college be paid at all, and what about my books, this semester alone is like $450 in books! That's more money then I can handle lol! BTW can I take out something like a staford loan for like $3000 so I can actually get a running vehicle?</p>
<p>EFC= estimated family contribution, your family will have to submit nothing</p>
<p>Does your college have a 100% need financial policy? If so, then 0 EFC means that you will not have to pay anything. Your college may still include loans like perkins/stafford in your financial aid package. Some colleges also give work study as part of the package - which you can then use to pay for books/car etc.</p>
<p>An EFC of $0 means you are likely eligible for Pell Grants. And quite a bit of financial aid as well.</p>
<p>Families with an EFC of $0 may have low incomes, like yours, but not necessarily! They may also be families with moderate or even high incomes who have too many legitimate expenses to be able to contribute to college costs. You can make a lot of money, but if you have sick grandparents to care for and several kids in college and retirement just around the corner, your discretionary income isn't high and thus your Expected Family Contribution may be pretty small.</p>
<p>Well I'm pretty sure I'm just off poor, cause like I said me and my mom together only made about $10k and that's before taxes... my entire family is a bunch of poor bums most of which are druggies or something else that they pretend they aren't. Anyhow I guess I'm the prodigy child of this family, showing that as long as you have a strong will and mind you can achieve anything... with a little help from old Dubya</p>
<p>Wow Twitch. I'm kind of in the same situation as you are. My mom and dad makes about $10k a year too. LOL!</p>
<p>My sister (different household income, weird I know) had an EFC of zero and went to Vanderbilt for pretty much FREE minus 2k per year in federal, low-interest loans. Trust me, your education is like pretty much 95% PAID for by the govt and university. This is really excellent news and best of luck with your family situation! If you can't afford what little you have to pay for whatever reason, ask the fin aid office to work with you. Don't hesitate either; they're generally very helpful!</p>
<p>It doesn't necessarly insinuate that you are poor. The EFC doesn't measure your family's social or financial status; it measures your family's ability to contribute to your education. That number simply means that you family can't contribute anything because whatever their income is doens't allow for them to contribute anything. If it were possible to be a millionaire with a billion babies that depend on them, that person's EFC might be 0 as well.</p>
<p>
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Trust me, your education is like pretty much 95% PAID for by the govt and university. This is really excellent news and best of luck with your family situation!
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</p>
<p>Not necessarily true in every case. having a zero EFC does not guarantee you a free ride to college as only a handful of schools are both need blind and meet 100% of your demonstrated need giving major scholarship or grant aid. The ones that are are extremely competitive. </p>
<p>Since we now nothing else about you it we would be extremely remiss and irresponsible to suggest that you will get a free ride because you have an EFC of zero being that it is not necessarily true.</p>
<p>If you go to a public university, you will be eligible for Pell, maybe even SEOG, but that does not mean that you will not get loans.</p>
<p>The overwhelming number of colleges in this country are need sensitive or need aware which means your abilty to pay may have an impact on whether or not you are admitted especially if you are not at the top of the applicant pool at that school. (this does nto necessarily help the cause of a student with a zero EFC)</p>
<p>If you attend a school that does not meet 100% of your demonstrated need (gaps) and you have maxed out your resources as far as the amount of $ you can borrow freshman year:</p>
<p>2625 Subsidized stafford loan
4000 Perkins Loan
4000 unsubsidized stafford loan (if your parents get rejected for a PLUS loan)</p>
<p>you could be left without a way to attend school. Read through some of the pages about students who are maxed out on the amount of money they can borrow, parents have no assets and they are still short the amount of money they need to attend school.</p>
<p>A friend of mine applied ED to UPenn, and will be attending there at the fall. She's in a similar financial situation, and her EFC was $0. Penn gave her all but about $1500/yr, which she will be repaying in the form of a work study. Basically, any good school will give you ALMOST all of the tuition. They will expect you to pay some part, be it through work study, loan, etc. They want to make sure that you don't rely on them as a crutch, as that wouldn't be a good lesson for the real world. Good luck :)</p>