<p>This is for my younger sibling who's currently looking at financial aid offers from schools. At first, we ignored the FAFSA EFC because we assumed that the EFC as calculated by his schools would be significantly lower (this was my experience when applying to schools 5 years ago). However this is not the case, and the EFC calculated for my sibling's schools is similar to the FAFSA EFC. I want to see if this EFC is normal, because this is very high. It seems like we're actually better off having one of my parents just quit working while my sibling is in college. I think my parents would be fine if our EFC was around 1/3 of their income, and even 40% would be doable, with loans. This is all pre-tax, BTW.</p>
<p>I told my parents to go over the FAFSA worksheet, and maybe call the schools my sibling got accepted to see if they might be able to give some sort of explanation, but thought I would see if anyone on CC had any advice as to why this is so high.</p>
<p>Just a few relevant pieces of information -</p>
<p>My family is dual income and makes between 100k and 150k. My sibling does not work.</p>
<p>There are three people in my sibling's household - I have graduated college and am an independent, there are no other siblings, and my parents are married.</p>
<p>No one is a farmer, no one owns a business or is self-employed, no one has inherited any money or played the lottery, there is a first home, but not a second or vacation home or any other property.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar with what assets my parents have, but I feel like there isn't more than what an average upper-middle class family would have.</p>
<p>100-150 is too big a range to list. 150k in income will give a vastly different FAFSA EFC than 100k in income. By the way, you are also the first person I have seen on this forum who has said (and apparently experienced) a situation where the school-calculated EFC is lower than the FAFSA’s. FAFSA is usually rock bottom.</p>
<p>I was under the impressions that the percentages would be similar in that range. For example, an income of 150k might give an EFC with 50k, and an income of 100k might give an EFC of 33k. There is a large monetary difference, but the percentages are the same - both are about 33% of the income. Is this not the case with EFC?</p>
<p>And yes, I got very lucky with the schools I got accepted to and their financial aid policies.</p>
<p>When you were doing your FAFSA, there were FOUR people in your household. Now your sister has three. While that doesn’t make a HUGE difference, it does make a difference.</p>
<p>Agreed with the above poster. $150,000 will generate a much higher EFC than $100,000. </p>
<p>A FAFSA EFC on $150,000 in income could be from $38,000 a year to $50,000 a year, as an estimate.</p>
<p>A FAFSA EFC on $100,000 could be from $25,000 to about $34,000 a year.</p>
<p>If the family contribution the school computed is very close to the FAFSA EFC, you are very lucky. Did she receive aid to meet that EFC? If so, and this is a FAFSA only school, you are even luckier as they don’t guarantee to meet full need.</p>
<p>Does your sister’s college use any other financial aid application forms…Profile, or a school form? These tend to delve deeper into finances than the FAFSA. Or perhaps did YOUR colleges use these? That could also account for the difference in what you are seeing.</p>
<p>All the schools we were accepted to are Profile schools. However, I thought it would be best to start by understanding why our FAFSA EFC is so high.</p>
<p>@thumper1 Although there are difference percentage-wise in the figures you listed, all are about 33% or less of the income, which is much less than the over 50% of my parents income our FAFSA EFC is now. Would the fact that there are fewer people in our household account for the difference?</p>
<p>What about your parent assets? If significant, these can make a huge difference in EFC.</p>
<p>Also, you need to check that FAFSA LINE BY LINE for accuracy. By any chance did 401k, IRA or TSA balances get included as assets? The balances in authorized retirement accounts should NOT be listed as assets. Another common error is listing parent income or assets under the STUDENT name.</p>
<p>Another thought…does your sister have any savings or other assets in HER name? The balances on student held savings (with the exception of 529 accounts which are counted as parent assets, I believe), could make a huge difference in her EFC from yours…as student assets are assessed at 20% towards the EFC.</p>
<p>There was a FAFSA calculation sheet posted on this board a few month ago. It helped me understand how the numbers work. I cannot find it this moment. I will continue searching for it. </p>
<p>Here’s the fafsa formula guide that you can work through line by line:</p>
<p><a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf</a></p>
<p>You will need to know both the student’s and parent’s income and asset info. The tables associated with the formula will show you hard income and assets are hit. After an income allowance of $21,720 for a family of 3 with 1 in college, parent income is assessed at 47% from tables A3 and A6.</p>
<p>You will need access to the student’s SAR to see if anything was mis-entered, an extra 0, putting parent info in the student section, not counting 529 balances as a parent asset, including formal retirement accounts, etc.</p>
<p>I think the main difference may be in the asset amount. For CSS profile, it will consider also your primary home equity (but not FAFSA). That alone may create the big difference in EFC calculation. Even for FAFSA, 5.6% of assets is calculated into your annual EFC. So it is not just related to your family income. For instance, if you have 5 times the amount of annual income in saving/investment, that can easily explain the EFC at 50% of income. Also remember the stock market has recovered a lot in the last few years. So your family asset may have increased a lot within the last 3 years if you invest a lot in the market. For CSS profile, the house value recovered >20% in the last few years may also increase your equity a lot. So even your family income did not change, your EFC is likely going higher in the last few years.</p>
<p>I think the problem is either ASSETS or contributions to retirements accts, 401k’s, etc…or both.</p>
<p>did your parents accidentally include home equity?</p>
<p>The parents would HAVE to answer the home mortgage and home value questions on the Profile. No accident there…it’s required if you own a house. </p>
<p>I think the issue could be assets or income in the student name, or the retirement accounts being included as assets when the “relative” did the IDOC documents.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, looking through the FAFSA worksheet again, it looks a lot less complicated than what I thought, so hopefully it will be easier to figure what’s up than what I thought. I’m thinking/hoping that there might be some sort of confusion between retirement accounts and assets.</p>
<p>Great, it is not rocket science :)) </p>