<p>Dartmouth has considerable guidance on its financial aid web pages. The first thing for the OPs friend to do is read those pages and run the FA calculators. “Her parents have very little money” may or may not mean ‘demonstrated need’ will equal COA.</p>
<p>Note that Dartmouth calculates EFC to be the higher of either the Dartmouth or Federal computations. Also note that there is a student contribution in addition to the parental contribution.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: There’s a big difference between “I’m opting out of the ED contract because there is simply no way my family and I can pay the EFC, even with loans” and “No I didn’t really look at Dartmouth’s FA information … I just assumed Dartmouth would pick up anything over what my parents say they can pay.”</p>
<p>The Elephant in the Room: Generally speaking, parents with very little money are novices with regard to college financial aid practices. The OPs friend is wise to get outside counsel on this … the best counsel available is probably the Dartmouth Financial Aid department.</p>