<p>Hey, I just got an email telling me my EFC [expected family contribution] and I'm just curious what that exactly means.</p>
<p>The colleges which I applied to, for the most part, "meet 100% of expressed need". So does that mean that I can expect to pay somewhere near my EFC at these colleges which meet 100% of need? Thanks =]</p>
<p>First of all…your EFC is a FAFSA number. Most schools that meet full need also use the Profile which asks for additional information. For example…the Profile considers the value of your primary residence, and the information from non-custodial parents (in most but not all cases). In addition, some of the Profile schools do ask for the balances in retirement accounts (although no one really knows how these are used in their calculations). </p>
<p>Second…many if not most schools DO expect a student contribution that is usually a couple of thousand dollars for freshman and typically increases as the kids move through college.</p>
<p>So…really…not enough information to answer your question. For some…the FAFSA EFC is higher than the amount computed by the colleges using Profile info…and for others the FAFSA EFC is LOWER. And it all depends on the schools…as the Profile schools are using their own formulas to determine the awarding of need based aid.</p>
<p>Most that attend schools that meet 100% of need pay more than their FAFSA EFC as most of these schools require Profile or their own financial assessment, which typically goes into far more financial detail than FAFSA. While FAFSA ignores your home, small businesses and the second parent in the case of divorce, Profile considers all of that and more. </p>
<p>Profile schools will consider all four ‘parents’ if the divorced parents remarry. These schools will look at cars parents own. It’s the rare student that will pay less at a Profile student and it’s common to pay much more than you would at a FAFSA only school.</p>
<p>My kid goes to a Profile school and the parental contribution they expect based on our financial info is the same as our FAFSA EFC. They also do not ask about what car we own (this question appears as a supplemental question on the CSS Profile, so some schools will ask, others will not.)</p>
<p>However, as Thumper and Hmom said, the situation will vary from school to school. Even at FAFSA-only schools that meet full need, the question is how much of that need will be met with loans. It’s not uncommon for a family’s EFC to be $XXXX, but beyond that the student and the parents are expected to borrow to meet cost well above and beyond that EFC.</p>
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<p>Not wishing to hijack this thread…but we started a thread a while ago asking for FAFSA ONLY schools (no Profile, no school form…JUST FAFSA) that guaranteed to meet full need for all accepted students and there were NONE anyone could think of.</p>
<p>If this has changed, I would love to know which schools DO meet full need 100% guaranteed…for all accepted students with nothing but a FAFSA.</p>
<p>I don’t know either, Thumper. My D’s FAFSA-only school met full need for her, and also for her friends whom I know well-enough to have that information… but I have never checked to see if they guarantee to meet need. I suspect they do not.</p>
<p>And even though they did meet need for us, a lot of it was met with loans.</p>
<p>Rent of…if those loans are in YOUR name (Parent Plus loans for example) the school is NOT meeting your STUDENT’S need. Schools that meet full need do so with aid that is in the student’s name…institutional and federal grants, stafford loans, Perkins loans, etc.</p>
<p>This got me curious so I took a look at old posts. The OP has divorced parents, is from an affluent area, father owns a dental business and is applying to ivies.</p>
<p>This is the perfect storm for someone whose FAFSA EFC and Profile EFC will be worlds apart if there’s nothing more than meets the eye. If his father is a dentist with a practice on LI, they will include both his income and value his practice. Getting a cent of aid from even the most generous schools would seem unlikely.</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware that that’s how meeting need was defined, Thumper. In that case, the answer would be no since my D’s school did include a small amount in PLUS loans.</p>
<p>Chapman University is FAFSA-only and meets full need for all students. However, it is need-aware in admissions.</p>
<p>Several other FAFSA-only schools are not too far off from meeting 100% of need for all students - for example, Denison University meets 95% of need on average.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize Chapman meets full need, Calreader, that’s interesting. My son has applied there and should hear soon about whether he’ll be admitted. We’ve focused on schools that offer merit aid (Chapman calls theirs “Academic Scholarships”) since we won’t be eligible for need-based aid. Maybe my son should have been more careful about the “will you apply for financial aid” question on the Common App.</p>
<p>Some colleges, Chapman and University of Redlands, to name two, offer some students an interest-free institutional loan, similar to a subsidized Stafford. For full-pay families, this seems like a perfect way to delay payments and hedge against inflation. It’s not clear if these would be available to families with no need; I’ll be following up on this as soon as my son’s acceptance/merit award comes in.</p>
<p>Oh as hmom said, I am from an uppermiddle class area, but although my dad owns a dental practice, it is failing and will most likely either be sold or file bankrupcy. He is remarried and has a new child of his own. He has a diagnosed case of dementia and as his mental health deteriorates, his business does as well.
I have high hopes that I will get aid just based on that. My FAFSA EFC was still only like 15K even though we get tons of alimony [which will begin to lower as Dad’s state lowers]</p>
<p>If you stick to a FAFSA only school, you’re probably OK.</p>
<p>At Profile schools they will look at the dental practice as a business that has a value. They will not allow all of the deductions your father takes for taxes and will add many back in that will count as income. If he plans to file for bankruptcy, that might help, but I don’t know.</p>
<p>It just seems unlikely to me that a Profile school will give aid to someone who owns a LI dental practice. Even if your father can no longer run it, there should be significant value in it-the equipment alone is valuable and most practices sell for significant numbers.</p>
<p>I think that a couple of my schools are FAFSA only, but for the most part, they are FAFSA + Profile. I definitely see what you are saying, but I just hope that it all works out =/</p>
<p>teamfrangela92. I’m sorry for your dad’s situation. It’s not an easy one for you or your family. </p>
<p>As noted, your dad’s practice does have some sort of value. BUT you also are dealing with significant medical issues that are getting more and more complicated. This might put your family in the position of having significantly less income …and perhaps it’s been declining already. If it were me, I would assemble documentation of your dad’s medical condition and also any out of pocket expenses related to this. It is possible that the school(s) will consider this issue as a special circumstance. Then again…they might not. But you need to be very thorough in your documentation. </p>
<p>I hope it all works out for you and your family.</p>
<p>team, I am sorry to hear about your dad. If he has disbility insurance, you might want to find out how this will factor into your financial aid if he gets money from policy like that. Since you have not mentioned this, and it sounds like he still working, I assume that this will not factor into to your FA for this year. You might want to find out how that might effect aid for next 3 years though.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice thumper, we’re trying everything at this point!</p>
<p>@North: Yeah, I do need to talk to him about disability insurance. The only thing is that he doesn’t know that I know that he has dementia [my stepmom told me]. So I guess I can talk to her. And his business’ decline is shown by comparing the 2008 Tax Returns to the will be 2009 Tax Returns. Income is cut basically in half.</p>
<p>Hopefully your stepmom can help you with the information that you need.</p>