<p>Having submitted a preliminary FAFSA with pretty accurate estimates, our EFC was about $5,000 more than I had hoped it would be. Has anyone ever gotten to pay less than their EFC? Also, do FA offices look at merit awards from the college before giving need-based aid? In other words....would they give the need-based aid first based on our EFC and then apply the merit aid or is it all bundled together?
We are starting to get a more accurate picture of costs for the next 4 years and coupled with the econonmy right now, it's downright scary!</p>
<p>EFC + need based aid + merit aid cannot exceed cost of attendance. EFC + merit aid can. But not if there is need based aid in there. Federal rules.</p>
<p>For instance my daughter got a higher scholarship after her financial aid award. Her financial aid was reduced to reflect this. The good thing is most schools will reduce the self help portion (loans and/or work study) first. In my Ds case they reduced her loans but, as she is a freshman and wanted to see how she was going to manage the college workload, we asked that they partially reduce her WS and reinstate part of the loan which they did.</p>
<p>Thanks SCM. So the best case scenario we can hope for is that the merit aid + need aid total leaves just the EFC to pay? I can't believe I'm left with wishing to ONLY pay that amount!</p>
<p>For example with easy numbers:</p>
<p>COA (Tuition/Room/Board)= $40,000
EFC =$20,000
Merit =$10,000</p>
<p>The total need based aid cannot be more than $10,000?</p>
<p>Is this correct?</p>
<p>bump........please?</p>
<p>I'm sure there are people who end up paying less than their EFC. If your COA broke down to 30/10 tuition/R&B and your child got a full tuition scholarship, then you would pay less. </p>
<p>But this is probably the exception.</p>
<p>OTOH, some state schools have a COA of less than your EFC so that is another way to pay less.</p>
<p>There is no one answer to this type of question. But I venture to say that the people who pay less than their EFC have been the exception rather than the rule.</p>
<p>FWIW, my son's COA is 48K or so. Even with a 30K scholarship, and a perkins and stafford loan and work study, there was still room to squeeze every penny of my EFC into the equation. I guess the good news is that my EFC for next year is actually slightly lower than this past year (lower AGI due to tuition credit and depleted savings)</p>
<p>Not that I expect more 'free' money to fill in the gap....</p>
<p>Thanks sue~
I knew the two exceptions would be full tuition scholarship or COA < EFC but I was curious about the specific example I gave and it sounds like we are going to have live with our EFC. I appreciate your giving the tangibles in your equation.....it helps me to understand better. I must be sight learner:)</p>
<p>if a person gets, say, a $5000/year outside scholarship NOT from their school...</p>
<p>and the EFC is about $6000</p>
<p>would that mean they only pay $1000/year??</p>
<p>Our FAFSA EFC is about 8 grand higher than our CSS Profile EFC</p>
<p>Your scenario is correct, kmaqMom. You will be expected to pay the full $20k, and the amount of need based aid cannot exceed $10k. If you get really lucky, the school will give you enough in grants that the need is fully covered. In that case, you can take out an unsubsidized Stafford loan to pay part of EFC (see explanation below). That would be the only way you might be able to reduce your EFC through financial aid (other than the PLUS loan). </p>
<p>Your need based aid will be comprised of grants, loans, and work study. At some schools, there will be no grant. If the school says it will meet 100% of need, there would most likely be a grant in the package with a $10k need. If the school does not meet need, though, there may very well be little or no grant. There will be a loan, possibly loans (Perkins, Stafford subsidized, Stafford unsubsidized --- google & bone up on what these are). There will also probably be a work study amount (which is NOT up-front aid --- student must get a work study job through the school, work, and earn as she goes). You might end up with a gap, meaning no aid to fill the entire $10,000. If that's the case, you would owe EFC + the gap. </p>
<p>There are many different ways the amount can be packaged, and it really depends on the school. I looked at packages in terms of the bottom line: What would we be expected to pay that was not "free?" This is a list of my D's financial aid packages in terms of the variation from our FAFSA EFC after all scholarships & grants, and that amount is followed by the loans & work study she was offered to help meet the need that remained: </p>
<p>School A = $1400 under EFC; no loans or wk study offered
School B = 3000 over EFC; 3500 subsidized Stafford & 1600 wk study offered
School C = 7800 over EFC; sub. Stafford-3500, wk. study-2355 offered
School D = 1200 over EFC; Perkins loan-1500, unsub. Stafford-3500; wk study-1700 offered
School E = 8500 over EFC; Perkins loan-1000, sub. Stafford-3500, wk. study-2000 offered
School F = met FAFSA EFC; unsub. Stafford-3500, 2000 wk study offered
School G = 1000 under EFC; unsub. Stafford-3500 offered
School H = 3000 under EFC; unsub. Stafford-3500 offered</p>
<p>As I noted earlier, an unsubsidized Stafford loan can be taken out even if the need is met (you don't have to have need, but you do have to fill out & file the FAFSA to get one). BUT you can't borrow more than a combined $3500 freshman year between subsidized & unsubsidized Staffords (you can borrow more between Perkins & subsidized Staffords). Confused yet? There's more ...</p>
<p>Schools determine their own COA, so some will be more generous in padding the budget for misc. expenses. When I compared aid packages, I just looked at tuition/room/board/fees in order to compare apples to apples. Because of differences in how schools stated COA, it looks like some schools above more than met EFC. Most likely that's because they used a padded COA in the budget when they awarded financial aid.</p>
<p>Notice that Schools C & E did not meet need; there was a gap over & above our EFC. School C does not pretend to, and School E "tries" to meet need. We concentrated on schools with good merit opportunities (which is how need was met at several schools) and/or a reputation for meeting all/most need.</p>
<p>Sorry to bore you. This is the long answer to a not so easy to answer question!</p>
<p>Puppylover, different schools have different policies on how they'll treat outside scholarships. Some reduce loans. Others reduce grants. Others have really good policies that kind of bump up budget to benefit the student as much as possible. If EFC is $6k and the whole financial aid package is scholarships, the only thing left to pay is $1k. That didn't actually reduce the EFC, it just replaced the amount. If there were loans, the $5k could possibly replace the loan amount ... that is, an unsubsidized loan might be taken away & the student could take a subsidized loan instead if desired.</p>
<p>FAFSA can be higher than Profile EFC, which will help. But the Pell & subsidized Stafford have to be awarded based on FAFSA EFC (I think).</p>
<p>Most schools have appeal processes for situations not apparent on the EFC - loss of employment, massive recent medical bills, etc. I'm not sure how they square that with any federal requirements, but it seems they have the ability to offer additional grant money if they feel it is justified.</p>
<p>Yes, EFC can be adjusted by the school, even for federal aid. The school just has to keep the justification/documentation on file.</p>
<p>The schools have to follow fairly strict guidelines to make adjustments because if their adjustment cause a student to receive federal money they should not have the school is responsible for it.</p>
<p>Also they cannot actually change the EFC directly. They can go and change the input figures to reflect a change in circumstances (loss of job or benefits for instance) or special circumstances (such as large medical bills).</p>
<p>For instance we had medical bills in excess of $10,000 in 2006 - after providing a mountain of supporting documentation to the financial aid department they went into our daughters FAFSA (not sure how they do this) and reduced our AGI by the documented amount (less an amount already allowed for medical expenses - @ 11% I think - in the income protection allowance). The numbers were then rerun through the FAFSA formula and a new EFC was produced - something around 2000 less as far as I recall.</p>
<p>We pay about $400 less than our EFC was...not sure why, but that's how it all worked out this year. S had a conbination of merit dollars, Stafford loan, an outside one year scholarship (which they used to reduce work/study). After that H and I were left with $400 less than our EFC. We're paying the EFC and did not accept the loan that was indicated to cover the EFC. H is retired, I am not. It's doable and our EFC was just about equal to what we had put aside for college funding so no surprises for us. Our final EFC was very, very close to our estimatted EFC from the calculators mentioned frequently in the posts.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your responses, especially you kelsmom....not boring at all and very helpful.</p>
<p>I guess I didn't realize we were so married to our EFC. I thought it was more of a guideline for the colleges and they could adjust aid as they saw fit. </p>
<p>Momof2sons, you are the first person I've seen with a CSS Profile EFC less than their FAFSA EFC but because two of my D's schools are Profile, I am hoping the same may be true for us. Of course, as kelsmom pointed out, there may be a gap anyway.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, I can't believe we are hoping to "only" pay our EFC. We don't have any special circumstances that will lower it......just four kids, average home, maybe upper middle class life and an EFC that is nearly a quarter of our yearly income! I must say, however, when I look at the world or see posts like the one by UCDAlum82 last evening....our woes seem very small. We are all still in a very, very good place.</p>
<p>I think our Profile ECF is lower as it reflects better expenses related to my husband's small business</p>
<p>Now that I think of it we did pay less than the EFC because the Cost of Attendance used to calculate the EFC includes amounts for miscellaneous and travel expenses which are not paid to the school. It also includes an amount for books that was a little over what we paid for 2nd hand books. My Ds travel expenses are less than the COA allowance. So there is some wiggle room in there - though that can work both ways (ie actual costs might be higher than the COA).</p>
<p>kmaqMom, you are right that EFC is about 1/4 of annual income. Isn't that amazing? I know all the rationale, and I understand it from a logical point of view. But, geez, it sure isn't easy to just ante up! I have the dubious pleasure of having a very good friend whose husband is a high level exec at the company my H works for. H is a career engineer ... we are not rich, but we are comfortable. Paying college bills is doable but not easy. Friend can pay her son's $40k tuition without missing a beat. It's less than her H's bonus. It would be easy to get down about it ... but then, like you, I put it into perspective. We are blessed, even if others DO have it better ... many have it worse.</p>
<p>is there a way to estimate css profile efc prior to filing--thanks</p>
<p>FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid</p>
<p>use the institutional method...
vs federal method for the traditional FAFSA</p>