I’m a junior and I was thinking about filling out 2 different years with the same tax information, except for a few changes to compare how much money I would get. Is this a bad idea or even allowed? If I put that I’ll be a high school graduate for both the 2016-2017 form and the 2017-2018 form, will they see that and penalize me or something for that? Am I better off with a financial aid calcuator estimate?
You can do what you want but really…I’m not sure your point.
Do all of your colleges meet full need? The fafsa EFC is only one small bit in terms of getting need based aid. If you are planning to attend a college that meets full need for all accepted students…then all but Princeton and Chicago also require the CSS Profile to determine the awarding of need based aid. Princeton has a form similar to the Profile. Chicago has a very short Chicago form.
Getting a FAFSA EFC would give you NO indication of the amount of aid you would receive from a college. At all. Sorry…it just wouldn’t. But you would find out if you would be eligible for a Pell Grant which is for LOW income students. Are you a low income student?
You can run the net price calculator on each college website…BUT right now those are set up for students enrolling for the 2017-2018 school year…and that’s not you. But you could run the NPC with two sets of numbers…and see. It will give you only a very GROSS estimate…not a very accurate one.
The fafsa for 2018-2019 will use 2016 tax year information. That you already have.
But the 2019-2020 one will use 2017 tax year info…so really you would be guessing…since that tax year is only 1/3 over.
Is there likely to be a huge fluctuation in your family income from one year to the next?
There are EFC calculators, the one from Collegeboard is pretty accurate (federal methodology).
Also you can pm @rgosula, I believe he designed a spreadsheet where you can input income and asset information and it calculates a FAFSA EFC.
My D filed a 2016/17 FAFSA and a 2017/18 FAFSA with 2015 income information.
The only difference was the amount she had in savings, so our EFC was only a few $ different.
I agree, net price calculators are probably a better idea to see what kind of aid a school might offer.
A quick Google for EFC Formula 2018 will get you to the PDF of the formula, and you can run as many different scenarios as you want on paper.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/2017-18-efc-formula.pdf
But what is the point of getting a FAFSA EFC? It won’t tell you what ANY college will,give you for need based aid beyond any Pell Grant to which you are entitled…and the $5500 Direct Loan for freshman year.
The fafsa EFC should be viewed as the minimum you will be expected to pay for college as MOST colleges do NOT meet full need for all.