<p>I really wanted to know how much money can your parents make and still qualify for financial aid. I'm not poor and don't need a full ride or a super big scholarship, but private colleges are VERY expansive, and I have 2 brothers that will go to college soon after me, so my parents at some moment will have to pay 3 tuitions.</p>
<p>it’s based off of your EFC. Basically, if your EFC falls below 3450 for this year then you qualify for Pell Grant. Apart from that, all other aid is based off of the school’s own funds, how much they want you, and whether or not they have any money left for limited funded resources like the WorkStudy, any state-based grants, and the low-interest Perkins loan.</p>
<p>The EFC cut off for the pell grant is 5273, not 3450.</p>
<p>Colleges will take into account the fact you have siblings going to school at the same time, WHEN that happens. Generally it works out to the EFC for one person divided by the number of college students. If you are worried about saving $ for your parents you should probably look for merit aid. Here is one resource: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=guaranteed</a></p>
<p>The “cut off” salary for financial aid varies. For federal funding, your need based aid will be determined by filling out the FAFSA. There are online calculators you can use to get a guestimate of what your FAFSA EFC (Expected Family Contribution) will be. Federally funded need based aid is based on the FAFSA EFC. Keep in mind that the EFC should be viewed as the MINIMUM amount your family will be asked to contribute…as most schools do not guarantee to meet your full need.</p>
<p>Schools that have institutional money use a variety of means to determine how they award institutional need based funds. Some schools use the FAFSA information only…some use the FAFSA and the CSS Profile…some schools use the FAFSA and a school financial aid form. The information is used by these schools in varying ways to determine how they award THEIR institutional money.</p>
<p>Re: siblings…this makes a difference when you have multiple students IN college at the same time. If only one student is in college…the financial aid formulas do not consider future college students.</p>
<p>Some schools have very generous need based institutional aid. Others do not. This varies by school.</p>
<p>Has anyone done the math to see what the highest salary can be, given some parental ages, number of children and other issues that can affect the EFC?</p>
<p>I think kelsmom or swimcatsmom had posted something like that earlier this year, but I wouldn’t know what to search for it in order to obtain their post without a bunch of irrelevent pishposh.</p>
<p>This: [Project</a> on Student Debt: What’s the Bottom Line?](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php]Project”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php) shows when institutional aid cuts out.</p>
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<p>There’s a calculator on, I think, the FinAid website, that will print you out a lookup table of EFC estimates.</p>
<p>You can put in a range of salaries, what increment you want in the table (e.g. $25K-$200K in $25K increments), a range of family sizes, a range of assets.</p>
<p>I believe it gives you one lookup table (income by assets) for each of the scenarios of # of children in college. So you can see how it would change as you add additional kids.</p>
<p>For most who are not poor, with the exception of HYPS, what private colleges think you can pay shocks most families. They expect all families to not only use current income but to have saved and be willing to borrow.</p>
<p>Run some calculators and let your parents get the shock now so you can discuss what they can realistically pay and apply accordingly.</p>
<p>The other thing that causes shock and is confusing is that the EFC,though it stands for Expected Family Contribution, it does not mean that. Most families are going to be expected to come up with a heck of a lot more than that. All that does is qualify you for the PELL grant which MIGHT open up some other aid, and possibly subsidize your Stafford loans should you need more money.</p>
<p>The problem is that unless you and your siblings go to schools that meet 100% of aid without big loans, your EFC is probably not going to matter much.</p>
<p>Once a family is past the federal EFC mark to get free money (see above), many schools don’t have much to give.</p>
<p>If you and/or siblings are not likely to get accepted to elites like ivies that meet need w/o big loans, and your parents will have a hard time paying for all of your educations…then…</p>
<p>You need to apply to schools that give big merit for your stats and apply to schools that you can commute to.</p>
<p>Otherwise, you could end up with “reasonable EFCs” for each child when all are in school, but the schools that won’t care and won’t meet need.</p>
<p>The other thing that causes shock and is confusing is that the EFC,though it stands for Expected Family Contribution, it does not mean that.</p>
<p>So true…we all need to come up with a better name for it, find out who in the fed gov’t can make the change in terminology, and then all bombard that person with letters and emails explaining how misleading EFC is and how it really causes problems with families who mistakenly think it’s some kind of “gov’t determined limit as to how much a family has to pay.”</p>
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<p>This is information to keep in mind. For maybe the bottom 5% of families, colleges will often charge a sliding scale based on your income, filling the gap between your estimated need gap (the space between your cost of attendance and the college’s estimated family contribution that they take using the EFC information from the FAFSA, the CSS, and other programs available). If you are in a higher income bracket, your best bet to get significant non-loan intensive aid is to apply to an Ivy League colleges that promises to meet need even for families that make over ($100k per year). There are very few of these, but most of the really good schools do agree to meet that (albeit often with some amount of loans, but not nearly the amount that some lower-tier schools might charge. Princeton is one.) The only tricky part is getting in.</p>
<p>*For maybe the bottom 5% of families, colleges will **often **charge a sliding scale based on your income, filling the gap between your estimated need gap (the space between your cost of attendance and the college’s estimated family contribution that they take using the EFC information from the FAFSA, the CSS, and other programs available). *</p>
<p>That word “often” is very misleading. Most schools will NOT charge a sliding scale to the bottom 5% of families. At most schools, very low income students will find themselves with a gap that they will have problems filling.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>thanks a lot! =]</p>
<p>
??? really??? There are schools that charge on a sliding scale? I had not heard of this before. Which schools? That would be very useful information to share with people coming to CC for helpful advice.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>LOL…the whole myth that some schools charge a “sliding scale” needs to be put to rest. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think we all need to come up with a more realistic term instead of EFC for the feds to use and then all contact “the powers that be” and beg them to stop using the term EFC because it (mis)leads many into thinking that their EFC is all that they’ll have to pay (hence the misleading belief that schools charge a sliding scale).</p>
<p>BTW…who would be the people who could change the EFC terminology? Someone from the Dept of Education? Someone from the administrators of Pell? Who???</p>
<p>The term isn’t present in the actual 1965 statute or any of the amendments signed into law as of 2008, so it might be something that the Department of Education or the Office of Federal Student Aid (who administers the FAFSA and programs that spin off of it, such as the Pell Grant entitlement) can take of.</p>
<p>basically you have to be dirt poor, or have 20 brothers and sisters to get anything worthwhile.</p>