I’ve been accepted to several colleges and am trying to figure out if I can make an appeal for financial aid. Each college so far has met my demonstrated need, but some calculate it as higher than others. My EFC according to the CSS profile is $16,000 more than the one on my FAFSA. Some schools are using the FAFSA EFC and others are using the CSS EFC. Am I able to appeal to these schools and ask that they use my FAFSA EFC if I provide documentation from other schools?
The FAFSA is used to determine if you qualify for a Pell Grant. Colleges that use the CSS Profile won’t ignore those calculations, which are based on much more info. than the FAFSA requires, in favor of the EFC generated by the FAFSA. There’s a reason they require the CSS forms.
Do you have any affordable schools?
CSS profile takes into consideration assets and income of both the custodial AND non-custodial parent; with the FAFSA, it’s just the custodial parent. There are about 400 schools that use the CSS profile to calculate financial aid.
There is no such thing as a Profile EFC. Schools using the Profile each have their own formulas for determine your institutional need based aid…based on the info you put on the Profile.
The Profile has a LOT more financial information than the the FAFSA does. For example, the FAFSA doesn’t include any primary home equity. Many Profile schools do.
Are your parents self employed or do they own a business? This also affects the Profile calculation.
Are your parents divorced?
Do your colleges guarantee to meet full need for all,accepted students?
As noted above…the FAFSA EFC is NOT what Profile schools use to calculate your family contribution at those colleges. If that were the case, they wouldn’t bother with the Profile…at all.
Schools use the FAFSA (Federal Methodology) to determine your eligibility for Federal Aid.
Schools use the CSS profile, Non-custodial Profile or their own institutional forms and the institutional methodology to determine your demonstrated need when it comes to ** disbursing their own institutional funds.**
Two distinct formulas assess information reported in the aid application process. The traditional institutional methodology (IM), developed by the College Board and refined annually by economists and aid administrators, determines the expected family share of costs. IM is the dominant standard among selective national colleges. Most schools that use an institutional methodology to disburse their own funds use either the CSS profile or their own FA form.
The federal methodology (FM) through the filing of determines eligibility for federal aid. All schools require students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents to at minimum file the FAFSA if they are requesting FA. The only thing the FAFSA does is determine one’s ability for federal aid, (pell grants, seog, stafford and perkins loans).
Since most federal and state aid are entitlements for those who qualify, many “deep pocket” schools use a comprehensive approach that combines the 2 meaning that the will use your FAFSA EFC to distribute any federal aid that you are eligible for and their formula to give you their money.
Federal VS Institutional Methodologies:
The FAFSA provides all the student information necessary to receive federal Pell Grants, federal student loans, and federal campus-based aid. However, some schools collect additional information before awarding their own funds, i.e., institutional student aid. In many cases, colleges and universities use a commercially available supplemental form. This and similar systems are known as institutional methodology (IM), to distinguish them from federal methodology.
**In general, institutional methodology is more comprehensive than federal methodology and assumes that more assets can be used for college expenses. For example, in most cases, institutional methodology considers home equity as an asset that can be used to help finance a college education; federal methodology does not.
Institutional Methodology (IM) formula used by some colleges to determine your eligibility for institutional aid; may count home equity and other assets the FAFSA does not.
Parents have an obligation to finance the education of their children, to the extent they are able.
A family’s income and assets produce a comprehensive measure of the family’s financial strength and ability to contribute toward educational costs.
Factors such as family size, extraordinary expenses, age of parents, and other considerations are weighed in relation to income and asset information in order to measure a family’s realistic ability to pay for an education.
Institutional Methodology (IM) is the College Board’s need-analysis system. Developed by financial aid practitioners and economists, IM provides a comprehensive evaluation of a family’s ability to pay for the costs of higher education.
Over 600 institutions use IM in conjunction with the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE to target their need-based funds equitably to the most deserving students.**
Choose “Federal Methodology” to calculate your expected family contribution (EFC) and financial need using the Federal Need Analysis Methodology used by the Federal processor and school financial aid administrators. Choose “Institutional Methodology” to get an estimate of your financial need using a formula similar to the one used by many private colleges and universities. IM is instrumental in figuring how the institution will use its own monies (not Federal funds) regarding financial aid for said family.
Not all schools use institutional methodology (IM) to determine eligibility for financial aid. The majority of colleges and universities in this country use only federal methodology (FM). Even within those schools that use IM, there are differences in how institutions use information gathered on the CSS PROFILE. There are also variances in the financial resources that institutions can draw upon when awarding gift aid.
A family’s contribution is not something most families can realistically take out of one year’s income, and most families finance their share of college costs through a combination of saving, paying out of current income, and borrowing.
The logic is simple, it’s our money (the schools) and we will hand it out in a manner we seem to befit the individual family’s financial aspects. The Federal methodology system (FM) apparently isn’t enough for private schools: They wish to extract even more money from the family using the Institutional Methodology system. In reality it is double assessment from two systems that are miles apart in many similar aspects: Essentially it is having your income taxed twice; once by the state, and then by the federal government.
Institutional Methodology (IM) provides:
An economically sound approach to determining the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) that is based on current financial indicators and up-to-date consumer research and tax policy.
A realistic assessment of both parent and student income. Paper losses and income adjustments—perfectly legal in the federal tax system—are not considered in the IM definition of income. Although Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) is important, it is not the sole determinant of genuine income strength.
A comprehensive evaluation of all family assets—including investments, real estate and equity in the home, farm, and business.
It is not CSS profile determine your EFC, it is the profile school that uses the CSS profile in their way to determine your EFC. It is going to be different from school to school.
My daughter got enough funding from a need-blind school to exactly cover the costs of the college minus our EFC (to the penny almost) from the FAFSA. Despite submitting the CSS which should have only shown greater financial need (e.g., underwater mortgage, no additional funds or savings or divorced parents), we did not get any additional support. I was frustrated that we had to pay additional money to complete this lengthy form when it did not result in any additional funding. I am grateful that she did get some financial support but I was hopeful that the CSS would result in a higher financial aid package and it did not at any of the schools to which she was admitted.
There shouldn’t have been any expectation that submitting Profile would give you a lower EFC than what FAFSA computed. Typically, both from my experience and based on what I have heard from others, the Profile EFC is higher than the FAFSA EFC, so you should consider yourself fortunate.
You are fortunate. Very often the family contribution for Profile schools is higher than the FAFSA EFC.
At many Profile colleges, if you don’t complete the Profile if required…the school does NOT give a nickel of institutional need based aid…only federally funded. I’m betting you got more than a Pell Grant and a $5500 Direct Loan…because the college gave you institutional aid which you would NOT have gotten at all without that Profile submission.
Thanks @BelknapPoint and @thumper1. I am new to this whole process and I thought our EFC was crazy high but I am grateful we got any aid so thanks for the input!