<p>I have done the EFC calculators for several different schools, and they are all looking for between 15k and 25k per year. Is it normal for them to want 25% of my parent's 80k income? or will it be different when I submit the FAFSA and the CSS profile?</p>
<p>That seems normal to me. Our EFC was between 1/4 and 1/3 of our gross income for the duration of our kids’ years in college.</p>
<p>Yes, seems pretty normal. How many people are in your household? Also, the amount of assets both you and your parents have will play a role. Is that gross income(before taxes)? Keep in mind that colleges expect the cost to be paid from past income(savings), current income, and future income(loans), not just current income. If your parents are self-employed, own a business or have rental properties etc. the NPCs won’t be as accurate.</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s before taxes, and there are five of us. The only assets my family has is the house, and we don’t have much in the savings (to my knowledge). Next year’s tax return info will likely show in the $70ks because my dad was unemployed for most of the year and just started a new job less than two weeks ago.</p>
<p>Next year…meaning 2013 tax year? That is what you should have been entering in the net price calculators because that is the income that will be used to calculate need based aid for,the 2014-2015 school year.</p>
<p>First of all, EFC is what FAFSA generates and it would be the same for ANY school. You can estimate what it will be for your 2014-15 school year, but you can’t fill one out yet, since they are not available until after the end of the year, on January 1 2014. You use income for 2013 for that. However, it is good to know what it will be in future years with your father fully employed since you have to redo this each year, and it will fluctuate with income. So if you are staring college in Fall of 2014, you will use the 2013 income–have you done that?</p>
<p>The NPCs are what you filled out for each school, and yes, can differ greatly depending on the fin aid policies of each school, and usually they come out expecting more than the EFC.</p>
<p>The EFC figure generates the minimum you will pay before getting federal money. With income in the range you are stating, you are not likely to get PELL which is obtainable only with a an EFC of under $5600. So, we are just talking a guarantee of loans in the amount of $5500 freshman year. The rest depends upon the college and state.</p>
<p>My mom is not sure exactly how much they have earned this year, so we just used a price for what we figured the other three years will end up costing.</p>
<p>I’m sorry cpt. I did mean the EFC that is generated from the NPCs. Sorry I didn’t say what I meant :)</p>
<p>Another one who thinks it sounds about right - word of thumb on these forums has always been around 20 - 30% of income depending on assets.</p>
<p>Here is the FAFSA EFC calculation:
<a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/082511EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/082511EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf</a></p>
<p>However, most schools have their own method of calculating EFC for their financial aid purposes, resulting in a different number from the FAFSA EFC.</p>
<p>Also, most schools have an ESC (expected student contribution, typically between $4,000 to $10,000) that the student is expected to come up with from work earnings or direct loans.</p>
<p>A school that “meets full need” will offer a net price = EFC + ESC. However, since these numbers can be different at each school, different schools which “meet full need” can have very different net prices.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have an unaffordable EFC.</p>
<p>Have your parents said how much they will pay?</p>
<p>Do you qualify for Bright Futures? If so, then that scholarship plus anything else you can get from a FL public would cover a chunk.</p>
<p>GPA: 4.52 weighted and 3.92 un-weighted
Currently ranked #2 in my class of 352
SAT: 2110 Superscore [640 CR] [730 M] [740 W]</p>
<p>Have you retested since you got the above? Your M+CR is a 1370. The W score doesn’t much count at many schools.</p>
<p>No, that info is all up to date (except my class size has dropped to below 300 because of dropouts, I guess?) I do qualify for the Bright Futures, and my parents did get me the Florida prepaid + dorm, so I would be fairly set for an in-state public university. I’m just curious if that EFC is the correct price for a private school.</p>
<p>If you got that from the NPCs on the various school sites it should be fairly accurate since your family does not own a business or have a large set of assets.</p>