<p>I'm completely clueless about financial aid so bear with me... </p>
<p>My father just filled out an EFC estimator online.
Their EFC came out to be 63014.</p>
<p>The college I'm trying to go to costs roughly 46000 a year.</p>
<p>Does this mean that we will recieve NO aid whatsoever?</p>
<p>My father really wants me to get a work study job. Is the only way to get one of those to apply for FinAid?</p>
<p>It means that your parents have an efc of $63,014. At most schools this amount exceeds the cost of attendance which means at colleges that give aid on the basis of need, it is very unlikely that you get money.</p>
<p>However, you should still file for financial aid any way because some schools require students to at least file the FAFSA in order to get merit aid.</p>
<p>You do not have to apply for FA in order to get a job on campus as many schools do offer positions that are also available to non-worstudy students.</p>
<p>Actually, you will probably be able to get an on campus job, but NOT a work study job. The funds for work study are reserved for students who receive WS as part of their need based package. Most college campuses also have jobs that are not work study. Check around. In some places, the hourly rate is actually higher, and WS also has a limit in amount that you can't exceed. Regular jobs do not have that limit. In answer to your question re: your high EFC...you will not qualify for need based aid, but depending on your application stats, you may qualify for merit aid. At many schools, merit aid is not tied to your need.</p>
<p>If you use the caluclator at FinAid, it will tell you how much of your EFC comes from parental income, student income, parental assets, and student assets.</p>
<p>Whats your family income and how many people are in your family?</p>
<p>175,000
4 people in my family. I'm the only one going to college.</p>
<p>You will get ZERO need based aid. Hope for merit aid. Now if financing is an issue apply to schools where you're stats (SAT GPA) is better than the average and you'll increase chances of merit aid.</p>
<p>Not everyone can or needs to go an Ivy league or top 25 school. Very good educations can be obtained at less prestigious schools.</p>
<p>you will be able to take out stafford loans and work summers as well as get a job during the school year.
Have your parents identified the financial committment they will make?</p>
<p>also very important to note...your EFC of 63000 is estimated on a fin aid calculator. when i did that, mine came out to be around 17000-20000, using a number of calculators. however, my actual efc was 28000, so that's about a 40% increase. so don't expect your efc to be 63000.</p>
<p>My s. spoke to the fin aid people at his school today. They basically told him that the efc was 40% of our gross income (not net, gross). This was before looking at his income, etc. I am getting this second hand, but essentially, from my limited understanding, this is a fed. guideline (ie not specific to his school). So, before doing all those fancy schmancy fin aid calculators on the web, just look at your gross income (earned and unearned combined) and multiply by .4 for your estimated family contribution. Ouch.</p>
<p>Sadly, you're only now entering college. If you had been in college for 1 or 2 years, you could send the school a letter telling them your parents contribute nothing to your tuition and that you're independent(never hurts to try-especially since it's a private school and not a state school so they'll be more considerate), and see if you get aid.</p>
<p>wikipedialove </p>
<p>uh</p>
<p>Your family makes a super fair amount of money. </p>
<p>They are going to have to pay something, if not everything.</p>
<p>Be honest. Fill out the FAFSA for all those merit based scholarships and things some of you folks just out of high school seem to sometimes qualify for. </p>
<p>Your dad has a good idea. But you will not obtain work study because it is something which pertains to University funding for folks not of your economic background. However, there are on campus and off campus jobs everywhere. So, you should have no worries. </p>
<p>If...</p>
<p>This whole thing somehow puts your parents in a bind. Then just do the Community College route for two years and transfer where you want to go and whatnot.</p>
<p>Actually, racnna, if you are responding to my post- my s is a junior. He could claim that he is independent, but they'll then probably just offer him a campus job or loans.... And if he got a job off campus, it'd just increase his EFC and reduce what the school would offer. He interned at a big Fortune 500 co. this past summer and made good $, which they'll expect to go right into their pocket, I presume (being a tad cynical here). But, you make a good point-- he could inquire based on his income only. However, the fact that my h. spoke to the fin aid people whe my s. was in the office would probably make them a bit suspicious about our claiming to cut off any tuition assistance... sigh...</p>
<p>addendum...
I cked with H. He says he said that we were not contributing further to s's education. the finaid person reportedly claimed they still take our financial status into consideration. Is that true??</p>
<p>yes, sorry.</p>
<p>Yeah-- you're responsible (unless son is 24). Think about it this way-- if all you had to do was say "we're not paying"-- and then the schools opened up their financial aid coffers, most parents would say that.</p>
<p>To they use a formula to calculate the EFC. It's not 40% of the parent's income, necessarily. It's often much less. It's a portion of parent's income, parent's assets, student's income, and student's assets.</p>
<p>They assess the student's income and assets very heavily. So, yes, they'll consider his income at the intern job-- and reduce potential aid accordingly. If he still has any of the earnings from that job sitting around in checking or savings accounts, they'll reduce potential aid accordingly.</p>
<p>If the parents AGI is over 120K or so, you'll likelly not be eligible for much aid. Remember that the average family income in the US is around 46K-- that will put things in perspective about what 'need' really means.</p>
<p>The calculators are pretty quick and easy-- give it a try and see where you come out.</p>
<p>One more thing -- even though your family is not eligible for financial aid with a $175K income, your parents are still eligible for PLUS loans, which can be used to finance the entire cost of the education. Of course a loan entails paying interest and fees, but to a more affluent family a loan can be a way of spreading out the cost over time, which can be advantageous sometimes if the family does not want to liquidate other assets or forego other investment opportunities. </p>
<p>Also, many colleges have payment plans that allow the family to pay on a monthly basis rather than a lump sum for tuition -- so instead of paying $40,000 for the year, the family might pay $4000 a month for 10 months. That also may make things seem much more manageable for a family with a higher income.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that there was a big change in the loan process (at least with the Stafford loans) in July, which made if much less appealing to take out a loan. The interest rate was no longer attractive enough to outweigh the cost of pulling a lot of investment money (although I guess the $ we let sit in the stock cash account for tuition payment is in actuality investment money, so I realize there is a flaw in the logic somewhere). The "spread out payment plan" at school isn't very attractive either. At his school, they let you break the payment into 4 monthly payments for the semester (I guess thats about once a month), but they tack on a 10% interest charge. Thats not worth it, for sure, as I doubt we could easily guarantee to make up 10% in investment interest. They also dont let you pay by credit card at his school. If they did, I'd do that and take the percentage back on my card, but that's not an option. </p>
<p>I had suggested applying for loans when he first started school, but back then the tuition was relatively reasonable, and he had some outside (one year) scholarships that made the tuition payment palatable. Now that the scholarships are mostly gone and the tuition jumped significatly (along with several other costs, like parking, etc) we are feeling the pinch. Ouch! He did swing by the admissions office, where he's done some volunteer work in the past. They are looking for tourguides, which may be a paid position (I think). So, he'll look into that and see what they offer...</p>
<p>Well the change is that the Stafford & PLUS loans have gone to a fixed rate, which in the short term is bad, but in the long term may be beneficial -- so it may be a better option to take the PLUS at a slightly higher fixed rate than to rely on a HELOC at a variable rate, for example. The PLUS loan might seem more expensive now, but 3 or 4 years down the line if interest rates are soaring, it may seem like a smart move. </p>
<p>The tuition payment plans can also be very different. My daughter's college has a plan that has no interest, and simply costs an extra $60 -- it is run by Tuition Management Systems -- <a href="http://www.afford.com%5B/url%5D">www.afford.com</a> --- I didn't choose to use it as we do qualify for enough need-based aid to make the tuition payments manageable -- but it looks like a good deal to me, and that plan is available at a large number of colleges.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info on the afford program-- I'll see if his school offers it. We are fortunate to have a 4%fixed mortgage (having converted a HELOC when the time was right) and thats sure hard to beat.</p>