<p>My dad made about 80k this year, am i still eligible for a pell grant? me and my brother are both going to be going to college next year, so will the fact that there will be two of us going to college make a difference?
I'm not sure how to calculate the EFC that is why i'm wondering.</p>
<p>You could try this site to calculate EFC</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid)</p>
<p>If you are eligible for a Pell grant (based on two of you being in college…) it would NOT be for the full Pell amount…it would be a very reduced amount…if anything. You would each have to have an EFC of <5000 to qualify for a portion of the Pell. With an $80K income, I don’t see that as being realistic.</p>
<p>Although the pell grant has something to do with income, there is more that figures into the equation. My husband and I made close to 90K last year and we did qualify for the pell grant (not the full amount–$1300 for each child). I think they look at available assets in addition to your salary. We have four children, two of them in college, we are 54/50 years of age and have less than 55,000 in available assets.</p>
<p>Teri. Since u have a family of 6 and 2 in college that is probably what made the difference for your kids efc</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that’s true. I’m hoping Kelsmom weighs in. My impression is that the FAFSA EFC is primarily driven by income. If you HAVE assets that are above the asset protection allowance then you would have a higher EFC than if you had NO assets. BUT I’m not sure having NO assets would reduce your EFC.</p>
<p>Was your $90K income your AGI?</p>
<p>To answer your question, our adjusted gross income was just below 90,000. My husband is 54 yrs old and I’m 50. We have four kids (ages 19, 17, 12 AND 8 – the older two are in college). This is our second year to complete the FAFSA and there were assumptions made based on last year’s FAFSA which prompted the question, “are your current assets less than $55,000?” – which they are. Our EFC for each child was 4,000 plus change and we qualified for the pell grant in the amount of $1300 for each child. The reason I’m giving our demographic information is because I’ve heard it said that parents’ age factors in. I should also add that we don’t own our house – it is owned by my parents. We have 529s for the kids, also owned by my parents so we really don’t have assets. Everything belongs to my parents! That’s why I thought assets (or lack thereof) must factor in.</p>
<p>Terig, it doesn’t matter WHO owns your primary residence. That is NOT reported on the FAFSA at all…ever. So it doesn’t matter that your parents own the home in which you reside. Age IS used in part to compute the asset protection allowance. The older you are, the more of an asset protection you receive (parent age is one factor). Having no assets would not INCREASE your EFC because you have no assets that are being tapped by the FAFSA formula. BUT it would not reduce the EFC calculated based on your income.</p>
<p>Assets do impact your EFC. If you have assets over the protected asset allowance up to 5.6% of assets will be counted in the EFC. A lack of assets does not have any impact (as in does not reduce the EFC in any way).</p>
<p>it is unusual for a family with a $90k income to qualify for the Pell. But having a family of 6 would have given you a fairly high income protection, and then the EFC would have been split between your 2 kids. (ie with just one in college his/her EFC would have been about 8,000 so too high for the Pell.)</p>
<p>The factors taken into consideration are income from work, AGI, taxes paid, household size, number in college, age of older parents, and assets above the protection allowance.</p>
<p>I ran a quick calculator on the $90k family, and the EFC seems a bit low … that may be due to the income from work/AGI mix. The other thing I wonder about is: Were you selected for verification this past year? If not, I am wondering if you reported the correct amount of taxes paid. A lot of parents use the wrong amount, and if the amount reported is higher than the amount of taxes on line 55 of the 1040, the result is a lower EFC than it should be. I often have to correct taxes paid during verification, and the result is a higher EFC than the original calculation. Of course, if you were verified, then the EFC is presumably correct. It’s a surprising number, IMO, but possible. When I did the calc, I used $90k income from work, $90k AGI, and $10k taxes paid (not sure if that’s close - but picked it out!). That yielded an EFC of $5334 assuming no student income.</p>
<p>Yes, we were verified last year and this year. The only reason I brought up the house is because I remember filling in a box that asked for real estate holdings and we have none. I was just contributing to the discussion because we did qualify for the pell at a higher salary than the OP – my thought was there must be an equation figuring in more than the salary. Kelsmom, last year we made the mistake that you were talking about (line 55 is a much lower number when you have high self employment income–last year after verification is boosted our efc by almost $4000). This year, our line 55 was very low $4000-ish and we still qualified for the pell. I should add that we just filled out our verification forms last week! They could come back and change everything, but last year the corrections happened very quickly. I’ll let you know. I should add, however, that I reviewed everything with our tax accountant before submitting.</p>
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<p>This is for real estate OTHER than your primary residence. The FAFSA directions clearly state that your primary residence should NOT be listed.</p>
<p>I am a single mom - EFC is about $3400 per child - I have three in college at the same time. I am 60 years old and am disabled. In 2009 I had over $22K in medical expenses - just one of my kids got a Pell for the 2010-11 year - it was for $1200. This year the finaid site estimates $800 Pell per child. Why is the amount so low?</p>
<p>leiqeltk, do you have regular income or are you completely disabled? Are you receiving disability payments? You must have assets!</p>
<p>My source of income is alimony. I cannot work but also do not get any disability income from any source (don’t qualify). I own a home with little equity.</p>
<p>It sounds strange unless your alimony is very high.</p>
<p>Do your kids have assets or income? A student’s assets and income have a much higher impact than a parents. (20% of student assets and 50% of student income over the protected allowance of $5250 go to the EFC).</p>