<p>I’m applying for FA right now and my parents income plus mine from last year is approximately 80K We have 100K in equity on our house and maybe 2K in savings. My EFC is around 17K which seems really high considering that Brown’s policy is families under 100K income with standard assets do not have to pay for tuition. If this is the case, shouldn’t my parents and I only pay for room and board which is 10K at most?</p>
<p>If I understand the process correctly, Brown has its own formula for calculating EFC, separate from the federal methodology. Brown does take into account equity (I don’t remember if the federal methodology does).</p>
<p>A bigger issue, though, is that this statement is false:
</p>
<p>Families with under 100K income and standard assets will not have a loan component in their financial aid package. They may still have to pay some of the tuition.</p>
<p>Ok I see now. So do you know if Brown typically gives above or below the EFC?</p>
<p>It varies…Brown’s EFC for me is below the federal one, but that’s because my brother goes to a private secondary school, and that cost is subtracted from my EFC. Some people find it’s higher because of equity (there was a thread about that a couple years back). Unfortunately, I don’t know whether higher or lower is more common.</p>
<p>Mine is higher. But that’s because my sister is in college (which cuts my EFC in 1/2), but her school is much cheaper than Brown (which raises the contribution Brown expects). For families over 100k, I think higher is more common (because Brown looks at things the FAFSA doesn’t), under 60k lower (because the families don’t have to make a contribution), and between that it’s up in the air.</p>
<p>Each year our tuition bill seemed to have nothing to do at all with the FAFSA EFC. It was higher. However, it was always fair and very reasonable. Don’t really know how they arrived at the final amount, because we only were required to file the CSS, which includes different criteria than the FAFSA, once. We are between the two income levels (between 60-100) and therefore didn’t have any loans in our package. The University scholarship increased each year, as did the Work Study amount.</p>
<p>^You only did the CSS once (because Brown isn’t going to charge its students to apply for financial aid), but as I’m filling it out right now, the IDOC cover sheet seems to have all the pertinent information Brown would have used from the CSS (like cost of sibling’s school, your 1040s, W2s, etc.)</p>
<p>^Right-i-o!</p>
<p>When my D was at Brown, we also made photocopies of all the recurring bills we could not do anything about–or not much anyway. The heating oil, the propane gas, the septic tank cleanout (annual) etc–they use a formula of regional averages for cost of living, but we figured if we showed them the actual things we pay, that would not hurt & might help.</p>
<p>I think it helped. At any rate, the aid we received made it possible for us to pay our share from the paycheck. With about $2 left over!</p>
<p>JRZMOM, when did you send these copies of your monthly expenses? I am just wondering, another university is asking College Board -IDOC for my filed 2010 taxes, which I am preparing, but it specifies to send what is requested. </p>
<p>So, when did you send out those monthly expeses? HELP?</p>
<p>For Brown (for continuing students, anywho) there’s a spot on the continuing students form to list extenuating circumstances. You could also just send a copy of the expenses to the finaid office telling them you’d like them to take those COL expenses into account. And I figure you’d have to do it before getting your aid (or upon appealing it).</p>
<p>Are we going to get our financial aid package with our admission decision???</p>
<p>Answered already: I believe so.</p>