I know this is pretty late, but I just realized this and now am very worried and confused. For some reason, I thought EFC was for four years, not the annual contribution. My EFC score is just under 150k, but my annual income is like 170k?? Even with my parents savings (around 200k) this is super off and I’m so confused. I’ve checked my fafsa and I really don’t think I mistyped anything…How did this happen? What should I do, am I just completely screwed for getting aid?
That does seem too high. Here are some initial suggestions (until the real pros arrive to provide help): Check for extra zeros. Are there assets other than savings? Is there a second home? Was there an IRA rollover?
Right-assets include equity in a house-if you live in a high income area the equity could be millions. Yes that’s fair-most of us can’t live in such areas for that reason. But it could be that something was entered incorrectly.
The big one is the IRA rollover. If either parent had one, it can double or triple the income considered when calculating the EFC.
If you made that mistake, you have to contact the school and have it manually corrected. They’ll likely ask for the 1099 or tax forms.
With an income of $170k it is unlikely you’d qualify for any federal aid, but many schools base aid on the FAFSA figures and you want to insure you get all funds you can. It’s likely your EFC will still be $40k or more.
On the FAFSA…this only applies if it’s your primary residence. @lostaccount
- By any chance did you enter your parent income and assets in the student section AND the parent section?
- Do your parents own real estate in addition to your primary residence ?
- Did you use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to enter your income and tax return data?
- If you manually entered the data, check every single entry.
- In 2017, did your parents do a rollover of a retirement account? If so...this needed to be addressed correctly on your FAFSA or it would be counted as income.
- Is the $170,000 income your parent net or gross income? Does this include any contributions made to tax deferred retirement accounts in 2017?
- Any chance you put yourself down as independent for financial aid purposes?
@lostaccount Home equity is not included on the FAFSA. It’s only used in the CSS.
Just a question…when did you file your FAFSA? Are you only discovering this EFC issue now?
UPDATE:
I think the section that for sure was wrong was the Parents’ Payments to Tax-Deferred Pensions & Retirement Savings part. It should have been under 20k, but I put in an extra 0 at the end, making it way too high. Still, is this enough to skew my EFC that extremely? Also, I just sent in my FAFSA for the UCs, so I’ll have to wait a few days before I can make the correction (aajsdkfh). Should I email/call all my schools that there was an error (and also resend my fafsa to the past schools), or is just submitting the correction on FAFSA then sending it again enough? Still, I’m worried I won’t make it for the March 2 deadline…I’ll have to do at least two rounds since I have over 15 schools. Also, it’s past a lot of the private school’s fafsa deadlines, so even though they already have my FAFSA, it’s wrong…is submitting corrections past the priority deadline okay, or does that kinda mess everything up. Sorry, this probably sounds super panicked, but I’m just so upset with myself…
(also @twoinanddone, can you please explain what you mean by IRA rollover)
@thumper1 I filed end of dec. for privates, but I just filed again today for UCs. That’s what made me see the EFC again and look it up…last time it was so high I just assumed it was for four years
sigh…this is what I get for being too last-minute
See if you CAN make the correct on the FAFSA form. Some mistakes can be fixed, others can’t.
You should be fine if you filed your FAFSA before the priority date.
Yes, adding $200k in income (well, $180k since you should add back the $20k that was actually a retirement contribution) can make your EFC off by that much. Income is the driving factor in the FAFSA calculations. With a family income of $170k, don’t expect much in need based aid.
$180,000 in retirement contributions would add that amount back into income…making your family income $350,000 or so. With that income alone…you EFC would be in the $100,000 range. And that doesn’t include any assets.
See if you can make that correction.
If you had to manually enter the number, you can correct it.
Also, it doesn’t always take 3 days to process. Sometimes it processes very quickly and you can make changes almost immediately. Just keep checking.