Hi!
I just submitted my FAFSA today and was a bit confused about the EFC portion. I am from a family of 6, 2 in college (as of next year), and around a 170k income. All of the EFC calculators I used previously estimated a total EFC of 40k (20k for each student). When I submitted my FAFSA, it showed my EFC as 40k, not 20k. Is that 40k a total number, or for each student? A 80k EFC doesn’t seem possible to me, as we do not have many assets. I was going to check my FAFSA again and ensure I listed 2 in college but it looks like I can’t until it is processed.
How should I interpret this 40k?
Each student has their own FAFSA with their own FAFSA EFC. It’s not combined with any other student’s FAFSA EFC.
Have you completed the other student’s FAFSA? What is the EFC on that one?
Edited to add: I just looked at one of your older threads…it would be helpful for you to recap your situation here. Is dad still custodial parent? Does stepmom have income? Does bio mom pay child support?
What can/will your parents pay for college for you?
Share with us any other important factors so that posters can give you the best advice possible.
I will have to see what the other EFC is. It is for my older stepsister who I do not talk to a lot.
I believe everything is the same as it was in my old thread. I still live primarily with my dad and stepmom (of the 170k, 130k is my dad and 40k is my stepmom), and my dad pays about 5k a year in child support to my bio mom.
They would be able to pay around 10-15k each year for college. I have a 529 account which would help a lot but I’m not quite sure how much I would get per year out of it. All of the contribution would be from my dad and stepmom, since my mom is unemployed and has some addiction issues.
I can’t really think of any other important details to share? But I will definitely add them if I think of any.
Thanks!
This could be a big reason why your FAFSA EFC is higher than you expected. What kind of 529 account is it (traditional, pre-paid plan, etc.), how much is in the account, and who owns the account? The account owner or custodian will typically decide when and how much is distributed from the 529 account for student expenses. You really need to know this information if ability to pay is a factor in deciding which colleges to apply to.
My dad owns the account (it is a Florida Prepaid), and I believe he has put around 20k in it.
I was thinking this could have driven the EFC up, but 40k still seems like a bit much seeing as I would only get about 5k a year from the savings account.
I will have to ask my dad if maybe there is more in the account than I first thought. Thanks!
I think you may have misunderstood the results of the EFC calculator. Was the EFC 40,000 when you did the calculator? Did you assume it was for both of you and split the number? Because that would have been wrong.
If the calculator you did was 20,000 just for you, then my next question is whether your parents might have had a rollover in 2019.
Ask your custodial parent and spouse if they did a retirement rollover in 2019. If they did…and didn’t note it properly on the FAFSA, that rollover amount would be included as income.
Please find out. This mistake is unfortunately sort of common.
Also, on your FAFSA are you sure you indicated that two of you would be in college?
Another thought…it sounds like you used the net price calculators on the college websites. These can sometimes be very inaccurate for divorced parents. I’m not saying that is all of the issue, but it could be some of it.
Is that $170,000 income their gross income? Did they make contributions to tax deferred retirement accounts in 2019? If so, did you include these as income when you did the net price calculators?
My stepmom was able to ask my stepsister her EFC from previous years (when she was the only college student) and it was 40k, so I am assuming I accidentally but 1 instead of 2 students in college on the FAFSA. Very glad to know my EFC will be 20k instead of double!
You also need to know what kind of Florida Prepaid account you have. You might have 2+2, which is 2 years at a community college and then 2 years at a university, you might have 1 year of dorms or 4 years of dorms, etc. Are you planning on a Florida college? The $5k per year sounds low as most get the current amount of Florida tuition, or about $7k, if going out of state.
It is the four year plan, but I am not sure if it covers tuition or tuition and fees. I will have to figure out exactly how much it will pay.
Look at your FAFSA & make sure you have two in school. If not, update it (be sure that both you & your parent sign with your FSA IDs, and click to submit the correction).
Be sure consider what your efc might be during all 4 years of college, if there will not be 2 in college for all of those years.
@003techie This 40K would be just your EFC so definitely doublecheck that you listed two in college. EFC’s can average about 1/3 of a families total income so with an income of 170K technically you could see an EFC of upwards of 60K and even higher if asset value is significant. Crazy I know. Hopefully the problem is that you just reported one in college.
@003techie Yes I agree with this comment, the more assets your family have the higher your EFC could be. MAke sure you reported the 529 in the appropriate place, if it is parent owned with you as a beneficiary then it is reported as a parent asset, if you own it then it would be a student asset. Student assets are weighted much more heavily than parents so that could be the issue also.
What are you thinking will change with an EFC of $20k rather than $40K? If the schools you are looking at are FAFSA only and give a lot of need based aid, you may get more. You may get subsidized loans.
But you may not get anything. My kids shared an EFC of about $40k ($20k each) and with that they got $0 from their schools (one public OOS, one private) in need based aid.
@BelknapPoint is this accurate?? I thought 529’s were assessed at the parent rate…even if the kid is the owner.
@thumper1 a student has to be 18 to open and own a 529 plan and double as the beneficiary, so most dependent student’s parents own them given that they were started in earlier years.