EFC seems too high

Hi, I recently filled out my FAFSA and applied to a few colleges. My household income is right below $50,000 with 3 members and the FAFSA claims my EFC is $4528 which seems like its a higher estimate that what is generally the case online for my household income bracket from what I have seen. Does that amount seem right and is there a way to potentially get this number lower? Im applying to alot of scholarship opportunities, but I am still really worried about paying for school. Thank you all so much.

Here is the formula. You can print it out and work through it on paper to see if you have made any mistakes. file:///C:/Users/MCuser/Downloads/2122EFCFormulaGuide.pdf

To know what you might be expected to pay at any given college or university, run that institutions own Net Price Calculator. There will be a link on the college/university website, most likely on one of the pages related to Financial Aid.

With about $50,000 in income, a must under $5000 EFC per FAFSA sounds about right to me. That’s 10% of your income. Keep in mind that folks with higher incomes are getting EFCs that are 25% to 33% of their gross income"

@Masterof2D is that $50,000 income your gross income…or your income after taxes? Did you contribute to a qualified tax exempt retirement plan in 2019? Does the $50,000 income include those contributions?

This is a better place to get the current EFC Formula

https://ifap.ed.gov/efc-formula-guide/2122EFCFormulaGuide

A FAFSA EFC of $4,528 against a household income of $50,000 and three family members doesn’t seem unreasonable, although there are other things that factor into that EFC that you don’t mention.

Thanks for sending the EFC formula, I will calculate it later today.

@Masterof2D , also remember that the EFC is not the amount that a college will ask you to pay for your student’s yearly college cost. It is very possible (many would say likely) that your yearly cost will be higher. Often much higher.

For instance, I know some families that came in at zero EFC last year and none received an estimated bill of $0 from any college. I know a family with a $9000 EFC that was left with a $18K bill for this year at an in-state public university - they could not afford it and their child is not attending college this year.

The EFC is misnamed as it is not really intended to provide parents with an estimate of what your financial contribution will actually be. To get a better idea of what your actual bill will be, you should do as @happymomof1 suggested and go to the Net Price Calculator (NPC) on the website of each college your student is interested in, and complete it. In situations of divorce, business income, and large financial holdings, even that is not always exactly accurate. But it will provide a better estimate than assuming your EFC is what you will ultimately be asked to pay.

@EconPop - Yes, they really need to rename the EFC to Pell Grant Index or something. It is so confusing to students/parents as it is now.

My son has a 0 EFC and we most certainly don’t pay 0. We get a full Pell, and we get a full state grant, but those two combined are about 13K/year. His school is 31K/year. Thankfully he has merit aid on top of that, but we’re still paying a lot more than zero!

I vote for Pell Grant Index. PGI has a nice ring to it.

Plus, it ultimately depends on the particular colleges’ aid policies and how much they can allocate to FA, in the first place.

@Masterof2D if you’re a dependent student and your parents AGI is less than 50K and they were not required to file a 1040 form Or you’re a married independent student and you and your spouse have an AGI of less than 50K then you should qualify for simplified needs which would be an automatic 0 EFC provided your family doesn’t have significant assets. Simplified needs allows the family to not have to report assets on the FAFSA, with the exception of some states that may require you to report assets for state grants. Are you dependent or independent?

Simplified needs just ignores assets. It is not the same as auto 0 EFC. You need an income of $27,000 or less for auto 0. But there is no auto 0 EFC for independent students with no dependents other than a spouse.

Simplified needs test does NOT guarantee an auto $0 EFC. As noted by @kelsmom the income threshold is $27,000…not $50,000 for the auto $0 EFC.

Independent students …not accurate either @TheFAFSAGuru . Please read Kelsmom’s response.

@kelsmom and @thumper1 Yes, my apologies for misspeaking about the automatic 0 EFC and the income limits…I need to slow down… …thank you so much for clarifying this! In terms of my referencing independent… I was assuming in this situation whereas @Masterof2D mentioned having "3 household members that if independent, then there is a spouse and one dependent or 2 dependents. So my assumption in saying this was that there was at least one dependent… but again thank you for pointing out the auto 0 EFC and income limits…

It’s not straight AGI that determines Simplified Needs and Auto Zero. You have to meet one of the other qualifiers as well. Such as being on some kind of assistance or not having to file a Schedule 1 except for a few exceptions.

Even though our EFC was consistently $45,000 to $50,000 a year we were very surprised when our child’s school awarded them funds beyond their Presidential Academic Scholarship…to include Federal Work Study. When I inquired I was told that our high EFC suggested a high financial need. That was perplexing because I thought a low EFC meant a high financial need.

@“AreWeThereYet@2020”

Something in your conversation about work study was not understood or stated correctly.

Work study is awarded to students who have financial need. Colleges can make the decision about this. In addition some colleges have their own work study money in addition to federal work study.

If your kid’s college cost 70,000 a year, and your EFC was $40,000-50,000, you still had financial need. The presidential scholarship sounds like a merit award, and some schools don’t consider the merit awards when they determine unfilled need.

You are right that the higher the EFC is, the lower the financial need is. But that doesn’t mean you had no unfilled need…and that’s how most work study awards are awarded.