<p>For those that have already paid towards colleges, the estimated EFC that pops up after you submit your FAFSA, was it really close to the amount that colleges have you pay? Our EFC is twice as much as we would have predicted and my parents are kinda freaking out. so, is the estimated EFC from FAFSA really accurate? did you really have to end up paying about that much?</p>
<p>I'm sure people's experiences vary wildly depending on the details of their family finances and the policies of individual colleges, but in our case, the number the FAFSA gave us was almost exactly what the college expects us to pay. This is also a CSS Profile college, and still it came up with pretty much the same amount as the FAFSA -- maybe about $100 more, but darn close.</p>
<p>It seems quite common though for CSS Profile numbers to come back higher than the FAFSA, probably due to assets not counted in the FAFSA, but in our case the numbers were very similar.</p>
<p>Neither of our kids attends a college that meets full need. Therefore, their was not fully need met. We are paying almost double what the EFC is for DD and paid about 1/3 over the EFC for son. That was the "gap" we had.</p>
<p>No. Our FAFSA was considerably lower than the school's bill. The CSS was more in line with what the school had us pay. The CSS was about $1000 higher. The FAFSA was about $4000 lower than the school billed us. Curiouser and curiouser. We'll see what next year brings. Especially since there is so much pressure these days on schools' revamping their Fin Aid packages in one way or another. Be prepared for anything!</p>
<p>You will rarely ever pay less than what the FAFSA EFC is -- the exceptions are the student that is awarded merit aid and the student that requests a review of their financial situation due to special circumstances (extensive medical bills, loss of job, etc).</p>
<p>Most families pay more than the FAFSA EFC -- this is due to gapping (schools that don't meet 100%), an increase in the Profile EFC and that fact that most packages include loans and work-study (which the student and/or family is really paying for -- just not at the time)</p>
<p>If your family has had a change in circumstances, such as loss of employment or loss of income, you should contact your school's financial aid office to see if they will adjust your EFC. Our EFC doubled from last year, but a good part of it is from Social Security income for my daughter that ended in 10/07. You better believe we are sending this information to the FA office, as there is no way we can pay our 2008-09 EFC. There are many threads on this site on the absurdity of the Federal financial aid methodology - it's ridiculous to think that a middle class family (by middle class I mean income in the $40,000-$60,000 range) can reasonably afford to pay 1/3 of their net income for college. Too bad the recent bill passed to supposably make college more affordable didn't take into account the inadequacies of the methodology.</p>
<p>As others have stated- no you don't always pay the EFC, sometimes/often, you pay more.
My daughter attended a 100% need met school & we did pay the EFC- however- part of the aid package above EFC, was met with self-help: loans and workstudy.</p>
<p>Danhmom, our income is just under $60,000 and our EFC was about 1/10th of our income on both the FAFSA and the CSS profile. (I'm not counting my son's expected contribution from summer and work study earnings in that 10%.) I wonder why it was 1/3rd for you. That seems tremendously high for a middle class (40K-60K) family. I don't think I've heard of an EFC that high in that income range before. It would, of course, be impossible unless there were other assets.</p>
<p>edit: oh, I see you were referring to <em>net</em> income. I've never actually figured out our percentage of net, but it's not a third for sure.</p>
<p>'rentof2, our total income is just over $60,000, we had a $15,000 increase for the year due to H's Social Security and D's portion of Social Security (which ended in 10/07). We have no assets, and our EFC was over $10,000.</p>
<p>I think we're counting different things. That would explain the gap. I was just talking about what my husband and I are expected to contribute, but not counting the student contribution --since I don't intend to pay it. ;)</p>
<p>If I add in the student contribution from summer and work-study earnings we end up with a little over 9K. That would be more or less in line with your figures.</p>
<p>Where is the EFC for the CSS?</p>
<p>D's school uses FAFSA only.</p>
<p>Metaldragon, the CSS Profile doesn't just automatically crank out a number for you. It just gathers information which it supplies to the colleges (not all colleges use it), and then the school puts those numbers through their own institutional methodology to arrive a figure. Some schools count 100% of your home equity as an asset, for example, while others don't. They often factor debts and assets quite differently, so you won't get a number until your get it from each school upon the student's acceptance offer.</p>
<p>The CollegeBoard site has a calculator that will give you an estimate for both the FAFSA EFC (federal methodology) and the CSS Profile EFC (institutional methodology), but the latter is very generalized and imprecise because colleges do differ quite a bit in their institutional policies.</p>
<p>what if say you already submitted your FAFSA, CSS profile. and then your parents' financial situation changes? like with buying a house or something?</p>
<p>We've done the FAFSA & Profile twice (working on year 3 now) and both times our EFC from the FAFSA has been exactly what the school has expected us to pay.</p>
<p>mine is 21000 and my father in unemployed right now. not fair</p>