<p>What exactly does an EFC of 28550 mean?</p>
<p>It means that your Expected Family Contribution for college for the upcoming school year is $28,550.</p>
<p>Use the search function. Every Freakin Cent.</p>
<p>It also means "welcome to the world of footing a LARGE PORTION of your college education"</p>
<p>So is that a good or bad thing to have that efc?</p>
<p>Its bad. It means that the Federal Gov expects your family contribute a lot to your college expenses.</p>
<p>criggacan:</p>
<p>That is a fairlyhigh EFC. That means that you will get less financial aid. Here is how it works. Say you have applied to a private school:</p>
<p>Tuition $35000
Room and Board $10000
Books and travel $2000
Total costs $47000 (I'm making these numbers up - but they are close to reality)</p>
<p>Your EFC (same as Your Share) $28550</p>
<p>In theory your college will give you $18450 in aid. (Total costs - your share)</p>
<p>So your aid package MIGHT look something like this:</p>
<p>Merit scholarship $6000
College grant $4000
Loans $4000
Work Study $1500
Total Aid $15500
Unmet need $2950 (many colleges do not meet 100% of your need)</p>
<p>Again, these are MADE UP numbers just to give you an idea of how it works.</p>
<p>So should the efc be about half of what your parents make? Because my dad makes about $55,000 a year and my mom makes about $9,000.</p>
<p>There might be something wrong with your EFC, if your parents make just $64K per year. It would be unusual to have a 28.5K EFC with that income-- unless they (or you) have huge reportable assets. </p>
<p>With that income, after an income protection allowance of around 20K, you'd only get about 44K parental income assessed, which should be around a 14K EFC.</p>
<p>Try the calculator at FinAid, and double check your figures.</p>
<p>That EFC could be very possible. We don't know what kinds of assets this student has in his/her name, or what kinds of assets his/her parents have (savings, etc). If the parents have saved a significant amount of money, or inherited money recently due to a family death, or sold their home and the money is sitting in a bank account, this could very well be possible.</p>
<p>No one here will argue that the EFC amount that comes up is realistic for lots of families. It makes me really appreciate the need that students that have from $0 to $10K EFC must really have. Good luck.</p>