<p>What exactly is the EFC? Because we just filed ours and my number came up as 9191 and my twins is 9261.</p>
<p>Is this a good sign or a bad sign?</p>
<p>Here's a good discussion of EFC from a few years ago.</p>
<p>that was no help.</p>
<p>The EFC (Expected Family Contribution) is the amount your family is considered to be able to contribute next year to your education. Your school(s) will have a COA (Cost Of Attendance) that includes an averaged amount for (usually) tuition, fees, books, room, board, miscellaneous and travel.</p>
<p>The EFC is deducted from the COA to find your need. Your financial aid offer is based on the 'need'. Not all schools meet full need. Your financial aid package can consist of a combination of Grants, loans, Work Study and sometimes a gap (the amount of unmet need). </p>
<p>Financial aid cannot exceed your need. If you have merit aid it will reduce your 'need'. EFC plus merit aid plus financial aid cannot exceed your COA. </p>
<p>So a for instance - your EFC is 9191. If your schools COA is $20,000 your need on which financial aid is based is $10,809.</p>
<p>By the way - if you have more financial aid questions the best place to post them is the financial aid forum. Lots of knowledgable, helpful people and you will get quicker answers.</p>
<p>With the HOPE scholarship I'm getting, the school will only be around 7-8,000 a year. So we should expect nothing...</p>
<p>Great. There is 3 of the 4 of us in college.</p>
<p>Your EFC is actually already reduced with 3 of you in college. The way the formula works is that it calculates the parent portion of the EFC. That is divided between the number in college (so if it was 27,000 it is divided between the 3 in college giving 9,000 each). Then the student part is added - hence the difference between you and your twin.</p>
<p>Your COA exceeds your need so all you will probably be eligible for is non need based and/or parent loans. If you have applied to schools where you are in the top few % stats wise maybe you will get some other merit money. Good luck.</p>
<p>And yet, you all seem wrong. I just found this on a financial aid website:</p>
<p>The Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is a measure of your family’s financial strength and is calculated according to a formula established by law. Your family's taxed and untaxed income, assets, and benefits (such as unemployment or Social Security) are all considered in the formula. Also considered are your family size and the number of family members who will attend college or career school during the year. </p>
<p>The information you report on your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is used to calculate your EFC. Schools use the EFC to determine your federal student aid eligibility and financial aid award.</p>
<p>Note: Your EFC is not the amount of money your family will have to pay for college nor is it the amount of federal student aid you will receive. It is a number used by your school to calculate the amount of federal student aid you are eligible to receive.</p>
<p>The posters who responded to you know what they are talking about. I'm not sure why post #7 contradicts any of that...</p>
<p>my EFC came out to be 114,000. is that sound correct?</p>
<p>caliboi - I am under the impression that other posters have gotten "99999" when their EFC is extremely high.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Schools use the EFC to determine your federal student aid eligibility and financial aid award. Note: Your EFC is not the amount of money your family will have to pay for college nor is it the amount of federal student aid you will receive. It is a number used by your school to calculate the amount of federal student aid you are eligible to receive.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The way it is used by the schools is that the EFC is deducted from the COA to calculate your 'need' on which financial aid is based. </p>
<p>Which is what I said. If you think we are all wrong (which we are not) post your question on the financial aid forum where you will get the same answer. </p>
<p>If you do not believe the answers on this board (in which case why come here and ask) do some research yourself - finaid.org is an excellent place to start.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/efc.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/efc.phtml</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
Your COA exceeds your need
[/quote]
I wrote that completely wrong - it should have read your EFC exceeds your remaining COA</p>
<p>The info here is correct. Your EFC is the calculation of what your family can contribute to your college education for the coming year. It is NOT a calculation of the amount of aid you will receive...but it is used to help determine the aid. Remember that the FAFSA is used ONLY for federally funded aid. The Cost of Attendance minus your EFC would yield your financial need. So...if your COA is $8000 per year and your EFC is $9000 per year...you would have no balance and therefore no demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Even IF you have financial need, not all schools meet that full need. In fact most schools do not. In other words, the don't award you the full difference between the COA and EFC. This is called "gapping" and most schools do this. Also your financial aid award at most places includes loans.</p>
<p>What exactly do you think the posters here "have wrong"?</p>
<p>See if this helps.</p>
<p>I have twins as well and one had an EFC of $12,000 and the other $11,000. The difference was due to different summer jobs and what they had earned and had in savings.</p>
<p>This meant to me that a school could provide loans, and grants to cover the cost of their education except for this amount that I was expected to pay. They are not under any obligation to do so however.</p>
<p>Son one is at a private school that covered all of his college costs with grants and scholarships except for the EFC of $12,000. They met all need and I was expected to pay the rest as my family contribuiton.</p>
<p>Son two to is at a public school and they also covered all costs with scholarships and grants except for $12,000. They did not quite cover all need but came close. I was expected to pay the other $12,000.</p>
<p>Both of these schools met our family need. I am paying $24,000 a year to keep them both in school right now.</p>
<p>Another public school they both applied to did not offer them any money and their financial aid package consisted of a $30,000 a year parent loan. so it would have cost me $60,000 a year to send them both there.</p>
<p>So you see the EFC is a guideline that helps some schools decide how much money to offer you to come there. However, they don't have to offer you anything of even try to cover everything except for the EFC.</p>
<p>Hope that helps</p>
<p>If you want to avoid paying the EFC you will have to hit the scholarships hard .</p>
<p>One other thing to realize: FAFSA is not the only form that colleges use to calculate EFC. Another, for many colleges, is the CSS Profile. The Profile asks for more information about more assets (such as home equity) than does FAFSA. Colleges use that information as well to determine one's need (the "institutional methodology"). And these calculations can vary from college to college.</p>
<p>perhaps my EFC said 11,400 instead of 114,000. my bad!</p>