Hello, I just did my FAFSA today for two children and got a report for one of them saying that our EFC is a certain amount. My question is …is this the amount I am expected to pay for ONE child, or is this the total amount I can pay for tuition in general?
Each child gets his own EFC and you are expected to pay AT LEAST that amount for that child unless merit or talent or other aid takes you below that number, and before any need based aid kicks in.
A school will try to give need based FA to cover everything except that EFC but not every school promises to meet need and most cannot.
Your second child will also have an EFC. The two are usually pretty close unless one child has a lot more assets. The first FAFSA I did for my two kids their EFCs were pretty close, but one had about $1000 in the bank so her EFC was slightly higher than her sister’s.
It is for the EFC for the ONE child. The other child will also get an EFC. As a family, the combined number is the EFC.
^^ But you don’t really combine them because the FA will be to each child. I had one child, D2, who had almost her entire COA covered with the FA, but the other one, D1, had to pay what wasn’t covered with her own EFC and FA award.
For that first year, the EFC was combined was about $34000 but I think total I paid about $10k. mostly for D1 but a little for the other, D2. Their schools do NOT add the two together and I couldn’t consider them as a combined number either
Two years later because of a job loss, their EFCs went to $0. Unfortunately, I also paid about $10k those last years, mostly for D1.
Remember, each college can calculate EFC (expected family contribution) differently for the same student and parents, and the college’s EFC may differ from the EFC from FAFSA. So two kids attending different colleges may have significantly different college-calculated EFCs.
Also, many colleges will not give enough grants to give a net price of EFC (or EFC + ESC where ESC is the expected student contribution of student loan and student work earnings).
Each of your kids will get their own EFC. View that as the minimum you will be paying for each of the kids.
Have you done net price calculators for the colleges on their application lists? If you are not divorced, don’t own a business, don’t own real estate in addition to your primary residence, these net price calculators will give you a decent estimate if your net costs for each kid, at each college.
Thanks to all for your replies!!! Pretty depressing numbers 