I filed my FAFSA and received my EFC which is 6122. I feel like this is high given that my family’s income is roughly 41,000 and we have no investments. Thoughts?
The FAFSA EFC is the result of a transparent formula. Is there any particular part of the formula that you find fault with? It is what it is. And anyway, the FAFSA EFC has very little meaning beyond eligibility for relatively modest government aid.
It does seem high to me if the family income is truly only 41K (I’m assuming you mean AGI) and there are 0 assets. Was there untaxed income, like money that went into a retirement plan or child support received? You can go through the formula and calculate it out by hand.
https://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/2021EFCFormulaGuide.pdf
Tell us more.
How large is your family? That sounds about right if you’re in a single parent home with just one or two kids.
That EFC would be high if there are 2 parents and 2 or more kids.
And is that your family’s gross income? Or net income?
Does your family receive any child support ?
We’re a family of 5, and I would be the second kid in the family going into college. No child support, and the 41,000 is based off of our AGI. All the information was transferred from the IRS, but it just seems high because last year when my brother filed for FAFSA, his number was less than 1000. Seems odd, but not much I can do at this point.
If your brother got $1000 with the same parent salary and assets, and you don’t have a lot of assets in your name (bank accounts), your EFC should be close to his and if he’s still in school, half.
There is something you can do. Check all the figures again. If your parent changed jobs, was their a 401k roll over?
“Seems odd, but not much I can do at this point.”
You should work through the worksheet in post #2 and see if you get a different result, one more similar to what you were expecting. If you discover you made an error - you can also correct your FAFSA.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/next-steps/correct-update
What state are you in? State aid is often determined by FAFSA, too.
Something isn’t right. Did your brother do his 2020-2021 FAFSA too? What did he get? You say he did his FAFSA and LAST year got $1000. Is he still going to be in college for the 2020-2021 academic year?
If so…are you sure you indicated two in college?
Did your parents do a retirement account rollover in 2018? If they did, then this has to be indicated properly on the FAFSA or it’s counted as income.
Did you enter asset information correctly? No extra zeros, and decimal points in the right place. By any chance did you put parent income or assets in the student section by mistake?
Are you sure you indicated two would be in college?
Do your parents contribute to a tax deferred retirement account? If so, that amount gets added back in as income for EFC calculation purposes.
Print out your FAFSA. Go line by line and check each item for accuracy. Since you used the IRS DRT, you won’t be able to do this for things transferred from the tax form. But check every other number for accuracy.
And ask your parents if they did a TSA or IRS rollover in 2018.
I wouldn’t let this go. We’re talking the difference between no Pell and almost full Pell and possible state aid if it is indeed an error, which it seems to be.
Did your brother do his for this year yet?
Something definitely feels wrong. We were a family of 5 with 2 in college last year, with a much higher AGI and a similar EFC.
I believe the income protection allowance for a family of 5 with 2 in college is around $30,000, so your EFC should be much lower with an AGI of $41,000.
My brother hasn’t filed his FAFSA yet, but I assumed the EFC would be a little higher than his last year, because our income did increase some but not a drastic amount. I’ll look into the retirement information.
Also, check the tax return…maybe there is something wrong on that.
Are you saying that with only ONE student in College, your brother got a $1000 EFC last year…based on 2017 income?
Go back and double check every single line. This happened to me the past couple of days after getting my first son’s EFC that was double from last year. There wasn’t much difference in our earnings, savings and investments. We are also a family of 5 although with slightly higher combined income of less than 100T. Well this year, my daughter started college too! Instead of putting 2 as the number of students attending college for 2020-21 I entered 1. When I made the correction, the EFC reverted back to close to what we have last year. Check that line.
Something isn’t right.
Did you indicate that there will be TWO students in college?
Did you accidentally put your parents’ savings into your section?
With that size family, and two in college, your EFC should be Pell eligible.
Yes, I would expect it to be closer to $1,500 per student.
Did you put the income earned from work for both parents after doing the DRT?
Well…we think it’s not right…but we don’t know…
- What the family income is.
- What amount the family contributes to tax deferred retirement plans.
- If the parents did a retirement plan rollover.
How much does your family contribute each year to a retirement fund, such as 401k or IRA?
Did your parents do a roll-over?
Did either parent change jobs?
You say that’s your AGI and there’s no child support.