Although my family income is not very high (under 100,000), the net assets brought our EFC to 60,000$ a year. That’s basically our income for one year, and is about as high as the most expensive tuition in the nation. I’ve read that certain schools (such as Harvard) give very generous financial aid and that families with “normal assets” pay only about 10% their income. Would there be meaning in filing the CSS profile and sending the IDOC or is it unlikely that I get Financial Aid due to the high EFC in the FAFSA? Thank you!
FAFSA EFC means very little, except for federal grants and loans. You must run the Net Price Calculator on each school’s financial aid web page to answer your question.
are you sure you didn’t make a mistake? With a $100,000 income and no assets, I would guestimate your EFC to be $30,000 or so. So if it’s $60,000 that is $30,000 based just on assets. You would need to have $550,000 or so on assets to have an additional $30,000 on your EFC per FAFSA. Is that what you have?
Do you own real estate in addition to your primary residence? That is one way to increase the FAFSA EFC.
If that is the case, you may find the net price calculators are not accurate for you.
ETA are you applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford? They do offer need based aid to families with higher incomes and “typical assets”. If you really have half a million in assets…I’m not sure that is considered “typical”.
@thumper1 yeah the issue is my family’s abnormal assets. We own homes other than the one of residency so the assets do come out to be just that, around half a million. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to qualify for any financial aid at the schools you listed but paying the poster price, even with such assets, would be a struggle since we’d have to sell it (and since its essentially my parent’s retirement assets).
I’m thinking that I’ll probably fill out the css profile and look at aid packages to see how things go… and perhaps just go to a merit aid school if the finances are an issue.