^Is that 10 -15k without loans so with a Stafford loan and summer earnings the budget is 17- 22k?
@gearmom @moooop Yes, I recently went to a dual credit seminar at the local community college, and we are going to factor that into the plans, as well.
You’re certain that your EFC is 40k per kid with a family of 9? You’re making over 300k a year? @jazzymom
Wanted to follow up on @DadTwoGirls’ comment about 529 investment choices.
While graduation date funds are one choice, you do not need to place the money in funds pegged to graduation dates. Some of those funds with very close target dates have experienced negative one year returns, while growth funds have enjoyed 20% returns. Admittedly, it is doubtful that either will see the same outcome for the next year.
"You’re certain that your EFC is 40k per kid with a family of 9? You’re making over 300k a year? "
They won’t all be in college at the same time!
@gearmom Yes, that number is without loans. We’d like them to graduate without debt, if possible. We are nowhere near $300K per year. Not even close. If so, I wouldn’t have needed to start this thread, lol! I put our numbers in several times on several different websites, making sure to include 2 kids in college at once, and it always comes back $40K.
^I’m looking at the EFC chart. With two in at a time splitting the EFC 50/50 or 60/60,you’d have to make around 300k to get that kind of EFC per child. The top bar on the graph is dependant children. Had to extrapolate to get to nine. Unless I’m reading the graph wrong.
@Belle315 Hearing about your experience is very helpful. Thank you!
When did you start prepping your kids for SAT/ACT?
@gearmom What chart are you looking at?
40k must be for BOTH children not per child. That doesn’t make since to have that per child. If you are around 160-170k for salary for example.
Your per child EFC for two kids at 160-170k should be 20-25k depending on the type of college, public or private. Our EFC is also around 40k (salary 160-170k) with ONE child. Two children puts us at 20k ish for each child when two are in.
40k each when TWO are in is a whopping salary like 300k.
I’m looking at the Federal EFC Quick reference table for 2017-2018.
You have to consider assets too. This family has seven 529 accounts
And depending on the school and the amount of aid to pay, it probably doesn’t matter if the EFC is $40k or $30k or even $20k. Once there is no Pell, many schools don’t have a whole lot of need based aid to add to the budget.
Many times the COA isn’t $40k so the total price might not be that big of a hit each year.
^Not for FASFA. That’s why our kids go to FASFA schools because of assets. That certainly impacts them for CSS.
If there EFC is 20k, they might get some aid for the additional 5-7k that the instate publics charge. I would run NPCs.
Of course assets count on FAFSA. Parents’ assets are assessed at 5.6%. Certain assets are excluded (primary home, corpus of retirement accounts) but other assets are required to be included, like those seven 529 accounts.
It will help if the kids get good grades & well above average SAT/ACT scores. While the state schools in Texas offer a good education at a bargain price, there are colleges in other states which offer merit aid that would make the net price similar or even lower than what you could get in-state. Check out Florida State, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Alabama, Mississippi.
The amount of credit you can get for various AP scores can vary greatly from college to college. It will probably pay off to shop around and find out where you will get the most credits.
Regarding test prep:
I’ve gotten progressively earlier as I’ve gone down the line. For my current 8th and 9th graders, I started them in middle school, once I realized how much a good test score positively affected my wallet.
I do it myself, but if you have the money to pay a professional, all the better.
Okay, I went back and ran the NPC at Baylor and SMU, and the EFC came back at $33k and $31k if we have two in college at the same time. We’re not really considering privates, but I wanted to make sure the tuition was higher than the $40k EFC I had in mind so I could see what the numbers look like.
Not sure what I did wrong before, but I’m going to re-run the numbers tomorrow using the efc calculator on the college board website, and see what it says.
If it still comes back higher than the $10-15k we have, I’m not sure if that changes our situation very much.
@moooop He is only scoring around 1250 on the practice SATs we took so I don’t think he’s going to be eligible for those really nice scholarships. He was aiming for a higher score and took the test Nov 4, so we’ll see… He also has time to do more prep and take it again this summer, but I’m going to leave the decision up to him. He already studied quite a bit for the one he just took.
I am hopeful that at least a few of my other kids will qualify for some of those large scholarships.
We do not make 300 and have an EFC of 39k per child with two in college at a time for a family of 6.
Our 3rd is a freshman so I’m quite sure of the numbers.
Savings are a factor in the EFC, not just salary.
The quick EFC chart is a bit worthless in my opinion, it factors in dependents, whixhbis bot the same as kids in college at the same time and doesn’t factor in savings (aka those 529’s). Using that chart alone we’d have a much lower EFC.
OP. When you consider what you can cash fund, Bear in mind overlapping kids and years. If you can cash find 1k a month for the first one, what happens with #2? Can you double that or does it get cut in half?
That will make a difference.
@gearmon I can tell you that quick reference chart is merely a hoping off point as @eandesmom has pointed out.