FAFSA sadness

<p>That’s true sk8mom, if you can save it, it’s great. As a parent, you don’t know if your child will get merit money or sports scholarships or other awards, if they do, it’s extra money for you, if not, you have it.</p>

<p>help! submitted fafsa but cannot find efc. It shows a number but called it an efc index. says it is not efc but is whar colleges will use to determine efc.</p>

<p>Believe me, Debruns, it was really hard to save that money! I’ve been a single parent for many years and have never received more than a few hundred a month in child support which I sent in along with a small, but fixed, percentage of my relatively meager earnings, then added whatever lump sums came my way from tax refunds, insurance checks, or other little windfalls…I think I even sent in money that was given to me as a gift from my parents! It took a long time but I started when they were very young and it has given us a little breathing room, thank goodness.</p>

<p>gasenior, the EFC index number is your EFC!</p>

<p>Again, I am sure that there some parents who have planned for college expenses and something has come up to derail the plans. On the other hand, there appear to be many posters on CC who are shocked by the EFC and have not really thought about college expenses till now.</p>

<p>One problem with planning: Twenty years ago, who would have dreamed that college prices would increase at more than double the rate of inflation annually? Realistically, who plans for a bubble? And who plans for two 100-year market meltdown events within a decade?</p>

<p>I remember thinking that $100k would have covered the cost for any 4-year school. And it would have, had college costs tracked inflation.</p>

<p>gasenior year…</p>

<p>That is your EFC. </p>

<p>What it’s telling you is that an EFC is not all your family will have to pay (some people mistakenly think that is what EFC means). But it still is your EFC number.</p>

<p>* work with many parents that pay almost their whole salary for tution, they live very frugally, hard, but not impossible depending on your situation and debt. One of them just had her son graduate, she said, “I got the biggest raise I’ll ever get!” She’s going on vacation and buying a newer car this summer. *</p>

<p>If she’s been paying almost her whole salary for tuition, how can she now go on vacation/buy a car? Are you really saying that these are people who have spouses that earn enough money that they live on THAT, and the second income has been going for college costs? Well, if that’s so, then the spouse must earn a good income. </p>

<p>It’s not unusual for a 2-earner family to earn enough to have a high EFC…when one of the spouses is earning enough for the family to really live on.</p>

<p>Yes, it seems the husband does make more than half of what they need, but they work their job and I’ve known some that worked two, to put toward tuition.
One doesn’t have cable, they all own old (over 10 yr) cars, they don’t go on vacations, bring their lunches, don’t buy expensive clothes, homes are not updated, all the things frugal people do. An old friend of mine was a bookkeeper at a small business and worked at Ikea at night 5 evenings a week to help pay her sons tuition (Univ of Chicago I think)That was her choice, but seeing her happy face the month he graduated, was nice. He worked too but for her, the extra work was tedious and tiring, but it was worth it.</p>

<p>I work because we need it now (stayed home for 5 years when kids were young) but I wouldn’t marry and have children if we couldn’t live off one income then, we had much less but we were happy and had less issues without daycare etc. Later things changed. Life is full of choices, some we make, some are made for us, things happen we don’t expect, money is made and lost, I don’t dare say what anyone should have done or could have done…you don’t walk in their shoes but we should all try our best to do what we can to provide for our families and their education.</p>

<p>My entire income goes to college costs (and no, I do not make what most would consider a “good” income). I made my statement about earning more in recent years from the point of view of one who has been through this. I didn’t have it before … so it doesn’t hurt to use it for school. Sure, I make a bunch less than my EFC, which is high because my H has a good income. No, we can’t afford our EFC. So our kids made their college choices based on what we COULD afford. My point, though, is that we have a whole bunch of money that we didn’t have a few years ago … this money is targeted solely for college because we were able to live on less before I started working.</p>

<p>By the way, a “small” 529 does NOT hurt you in terms of financial aid. It’s part of the parent assets, and there is a protection allowance for parent assets. If your assets are in excess of your protection allowance, you are doing quite well compared to the vast majority of families.</p>

<p>The debate about “how much” sacrifice to make is not winnable. As someone said, it’s all about choices. </p>

<p>That said…the following scenario from earlier post…"work with many parents that pay almost their whole salary for tution, they live very frugally, hard, but not impossible depending on your situation and debt. One of them just had her son graduate, she said, “I got the biggest raise I’ll ever get!” She’s going on vacation and buying a newer car this summer. "</p>

<p>Is evidence of the insidious nature of political correctness around funding your child’s education. The implication is that if you’re not willing to drive 10 year old cars, etc etc…you are in the wrong." The choice isn’t that simple. Some kids really want the $52k per year school…because it’s a great school AND they’re smart enough to get in. But they can also get a stellar education at a very very good school, with merit money, and get a great education. There are so many holier than thou posts chastizing parents for not putting it all on the line for their kids…It just gets tiresome. We are very very fortunate to be in the spot we’re in financially, and with our D’s profile. But no one will convince me that savers aren’t penalized, and that the FAFSA form isn’t a sham. Sorry. There it is.</p>

<p>^^^</p>

<p>It doesn’t matter. Fed aid isn’t going to give you anything anyway if you’re not lowish income.</p>

<p>“There are so many holier than thou posts chastizing parents for not putting it all on the line for their kids…It just gets tiresome.”</p>

<p>AMEN! </p>

<p>“We are very very fortunate to be in the spot we’re in financially, and with our D’s profile. But no one will convince me that savers aren’t penalized, and that the FAFSA form isn’t a sham”</p>

<p>AMEN again!</p>

<p>and that the FAFSA form isn’t a sham</p>

<p>I think that FAFSA is only a sham in that the idea of FA is misleading to most people.</p>

<p>they hear the words “expected family contribution” and think that schools are going to charge some kind of “sliding scale” based on that EFC number.</p>

<p>Maybe if that acronym was changed to reflect what it really is…an index number to see if you qualify for a small grant from the feds, then people wouldn’t get their hopes up. </p>

<p>No one with a good income should be expecting free money from the feds.</p>

<p>Obviously, with millions and millions going to college every year, there can only be fed grants for a small fraction.</p>

<p>I would just like to say that maybe taxes should be lowered for those who have students in college. I’m a senior in high school and planning to attend college next fall. My college savings account contain 24000, my family was charged and income tax of 20000. That is so ridiculous and also because in a high income area (long island) my EFC is 30824. My family simply cannot afford that where we live.</p>

<p>^^^</p>

<p>I know another Long Island family in the same situation. their child accepted a large merit scholarship to another state’s flagship.</p>

<p>Yeah the taxes here are so ridiculous and fafsa does not even take that into consideration. That’s very good for them I got half tuition somewhere but that isn’t where I want to go. I suppose I will just drown in loans.</p>

<p>IMO FAFSA does take it into consideration because most people in major metropolitan areas like NY earn significantly more than people outside. Higher income, higher cost of living.</p>

<p>I agree. It’s become abundantly clear to me while reading CC posts that people in high cost of living areas earn a lot more than they do in my rust belt area. Folks in NYC pay their babysitters more than I make in a year.</p>

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<p>One way to see if savers are or aren’t penalized is to go to an on-line financial aid calculator and plug in different numbers for savings and see what happens. I tried this with the College Board calculator for a 4 person family, 250K AGI, and with or without 200K in savings. The difference between the saver and nonsaver family was about +8K, but each one was over 50K EFC.</p>

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<p>There are tax credits and deductions available…see IRS Pub. 970. Also, the 529 plan you have is a tax-qualified account. Your parents likely took a NYS tax deduction on the contributions, earnings grew tax free, and there will be no taxes on the withdrawals as long as they’re used to pay for an eligible education expense.</p>

<p>The EFC formula does have deductions for income and employment taxes. The employment taxes (FICA, Medicare) are calculated on income earned from work. You enter the actual federal income tax paid, and the NY state tax allowance is 9% of the first $15K of total income and 8% of anything over that. That’s all part of the formula used to calculate your EFC.</p>

<p>I’m not saying that a $30K EFC should be affordable to a family in a high cost of living area, and we don’t know what other obligations they have. But you are fortunate in having excellent, low cost public schools available…the tuition at every SUNY is $4970/year and you can certainly start at Stony Brook, or maybe one of the CUNY schools, to save money/loans the first two years if you don’t get big merit aid elsewhere. Sometimes you have to compromise and be thankful for the cup that’s half full.</p>