Income thresholds for Pell eligibility

Paying for College
1

<p>What are the eligibility criteria for receiving a Pell grant? I was running a NPC for a school and for 80k agi 3exemptions --> no pell; for 80k 4 exemptions, full 5730 pell. WHY? I am feeling that the NPC is not reliable</p>

<p>two parents , each 55.
2k savings assets
1 in school
p1=60k
p2=20k
1040a</p>

<p>I dont think home matters in the FM which determines pell (correct?), but here is home data....
home=240k; 100 mrtg balance </p>

2

<p>I think that second calculation is very wrong. that income is too high for Pell …even with 4 exemptions. what school gave that?</p>

3

<p>I agree with m2k with an 80k salary and 2 kids in college, you would not be pell eligible</p>

<p>you can do a quick google search for federal efc quick reference tables to get an idea of your EFC</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.stratagee.com/resources/efc_quick_reference/1213_efc_quick_reference.html”>http://www.stratagee.com/resources/efc_quick_reference/1213_efc_quick_reference.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>for Pell, use the FAFSA4caster
<a href=“https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm?execution=e1s1”>https://fafsa.ed.gov/FAFSA/app/f4cForm?execution=e1s1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Absolutely not a reliable calculator. An AGI of $80k would produce an EFC in the $14k range (with no assets) - well above Pell range.</p>

<p>Full Pell requires a 0 EFC. Over about 5157 EFC there is no pell.</p>

6

<p>I don’t know how the Pell income thresholds work. I can tell you that a friend of mine’s daughter applied to 12 colleges. For some reason, Temple gave her a Pell grant in their financial aid package. It was the only school of the 12 to do so. The father is self employed - I suppose it had something to do with that. Or else it was a mistake that would have been taken away (she’s not going to Temple). It caused some confusion for the parents as they never thought they’d get Pell money from any college as they are a relatively comfortable family.</p>

7

<p>I have known students who have gotten PELL and some who have not, in initial financial aid packages, and then the actual situation was reversed. What can happen is that the initial FAFSA is estimated and if the estimates do not generate a PELL eligible EFC, the award will not be included. A lot of families will do an estimate before taxes are filed which can very well differ from the final when IRS verification is done. Also mistakes can be found and corrected. THe actual package when all verifications are complete could be different from what was generated with initial numbers.</p>

<p>My one cousin HAD to be PELL eligible, but his kid did not get PELL or any aid. He had a house listed as an asset that he jointly owned with his siblings and others and he had listed the entire value of the home as he was quoted rather than what his share of the market value. For him, his share was well under his asset protection allowance. Ten times that made a huge difference. </p>

8

<p>when the 80k has 3 exemptions it yields an efc of 11,250 (student has 13k savings) and no pell. I upped it to 90k and guess what ? PELL. Obviously the NPC for this school (from the collegeboard site) sucks and is useless as a modeling tool for a 4 yr estimate. I dont have a job now and wanted to know the cost over different possible jobs.</p>

9

<p>Clearly a mistake. Do let the school know. These calculators are relatively new and so are likely to have some bugs that hopefully can be taken care of by those who find them and let the school know.</p>

10

<p>What school is this</p>

11

<p>a 4 year private institution</p>

12

<p>swimcats said: “Full Pell requires a 0 EFC. Over about 5157 EFC there is no pell.” </p>

<p>so I take it from this stmt that a pell grant admits to degrees? so…</p>

<p>0 efc = 100% pell = $5730?</p>

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<p>I notice on the color coded link provided above that a 5157 efc with 3 dependent children is assoc w/ an income of about $66k
and with 4 dependent children…about $71k</p>

<p>So I guess this is the cut off for receiving some amount of a pell grant. But as the amt of the pell seems to slide to zero at this cutoff, it would be almost zero.</p>

<p>is there any chart that shows how much of a pell is yielded by income?</p>

<p>I was not able to get that link for fafsa to work.</p>

13

<p>Pell isn’t only dependent on income, but on assets of the family and the student too, so it’s not possible to day “$47,500 with a family of 2 will get you $4000 in Pell grant, but $57,643 with 4 kids will also get you $4000.” You’d have to know the income, assets, marital status, to figure it out. Singles have a much lower asset exclusion than a married couple.</p>

<p>Just too many variables to chart.</p>

14

<p>Since assets count, too, just using income wont tell the whole story.</p>

<p>which private univ has this wacky NPC?</p>

15

<p>While you have 3 dependent children, how many will be attending college as undergraduates?</p>

16

<p>only 1 will be attending UG</p>

17

<p>I finally figured out how to use the fafsa4caster noted in a post above (you must click the ‘thinking about college’ link), but I found another disturbing thing. I wanted to use the exact numbers of this year (used for son’s real FA pkg this yr ) to establish credibility in the use of this 4caster tool, and I found that that the school estimated a full Pell in the FA pkg (5730), but the 4caster estimated a small fraction (750). </p>

<p>parents agi=$19, exemptions=4, nmbr in college=2, student asset=$25k. </p>

<p>Does the 4caster apply all the relevent critieria used in generating a Pell or just ballpark/rough estimates?</p>

<p>Unlike the real FAFSA, for example, it did not ask whether any parent was a dislocated worker (answer=Y). maybe this affects the final verdict of PEll?</p>

<p>The other possibility, of course, the subject of this OP, is that the school’s estimated Pell from its FA pkg was <em>wrong</em>.</p>

<p>So if this were the case, here is an interesting question for this financial aid sub-forum in CC: </p>

<p>How binding is a college’s FA package that they give you when you are deciding between colleges?</p>

<p>I know it says that it is dependent on the information that you provide to the college. So what happens if my financial info is correct, but their Pell calculator (eg) is wrong ? Are they obliged to give me the price that they said they’s give me in teh FA pkg?</p>

<p>This might be a little like a store selling a product that is mislabeled or scans at an incorrect price, and then they say ’ oh no, it is really a new price’. I say a little like this since in this case now we are sitting at post 5-1, we already nixed other schools and price was the nmbr one driver.</p>

18

<p>update - looks like the 4caster tool is not reliable either as I checked my FAFSA for this year , and I confirmed that it gave us a 5645 for next yr. is 5645 a full pell? the school’s FA specified 5730.</p>

<p>In other words, 4caster not= FAFSA</p>

19

<p>FIrst of all, until a school verifies your FAFSA information, and distributes the award, no, it is not final. Also if any subsequent audits, even after the money has long been distributed and uses, because we are dealing with the feds here when it comes to PELL , there is a very long arm and lots of funds to go after someone and get the money back. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mistake not on your part, theirs. Also the schools can hold the transcript and grad info hostage if money has to go back or any mistakes or fraud happen and that gets caught. They’ve got us by the ying yang.</p>

<p>There are six ways to Sunday and more to get an EFC figure that won’t match up with the estimators. The estimator is just that. Your final tax return (and if that info is found to be erroneous, not even that can change), assets and situation are what determine your EFC, which is what directly affects PELL eligibility and awards. With the income figure and family situation you divulged to us, it is highly unlikely you would have been PELL elgibile. But we don’t have your actual FAFSA and have no idea what is going on with your family. Do have a family business in there? What comprises your earning? Did you pay a lot of taxes this year? Just a few examples of some things that can heavily impact EFC. Also the fact that, yes, mistakes get made, by the applicant, parent, FAFSA folks, and college. Yup, all of that can be the cause of your unexpected low EFC and high PELL grant award. </p>

20

<p>If you want the real fafsa formula, use the formula guide here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Some of the amounts in the tables change each year.</p>

<p>Once you find your efc, then you can look up the Pell amounts here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/20142015PellGrantPaymentandDisbursementSchedules.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/attachments/20142015PellGrantPaymentandDisbursementSchedules.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;