<p>My father is retired and could not get another job because my mother has cancer, which also prevents her from working. Either way, my father has a fairly substantial pension, and good assets, most of which go to covering medical bills (which were over $20,000 out of pocket last year) how much will this affect my family's EFC?</p>
<p>You have to ask the school for a special circumstances adjustment to reflect the high medical bills. If they are willing to consider one you wil have to provide a lot of supporting documentation. Then if they approve it they must first reduce the medical bills by the amount already allowed for medical in the protected income allowances (this varies depending on the size of family and number in college - say around $2000 ish). Then they go in and reduce income by the amount approved. FAFSA calculates a new EFC based on the adjusted income. How much difference it makes depends on how high your income is. Different levels of income can affect your EFC by different percentages - between 22% to 47%. </p>
<p>We had an adjustment for medical expenses a few years back. As far as I can recall the expenses were about $10,000 and our EFC went down between 2-3,000.</p>