<p>I am still trying to understand EFC. I have 2 sons going to the same college, a freshman and a sophmore. According to FAFSA SAR, one EFC is $30K and the other $29K. The colleges award letters indicated EFC for each is $27K for a total of $54K for both. I thought I will get a break on EFC for having 2 in college. Am I dreaming?</p>
<p>What is your earnings and assets? With two in college, it would seem to be lower.</p>
<p>if your sons have not yet reached the age of 24, then FAFSA will only consider not only your income as reported on the tax return but those of your sons if they earned any money last year. perhaps that is why your EFC is so high or you made a mistake on the FAFSA. if they are at least 24 then FAFSA will only consider their income and not yours. i do know though that for a 0 EFC you must make less than $30000 a year and have dependents.</p>
<p>there is a website, FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans which has an efc calculator. all you have to do is answer the questions on the site, plug in your tax info (AGI, untaxed income, exemptions, etc...) and that of your sons, if applicable, and see what it says. i found the calculator there to be accurate almost all of the time, especially if i want to double check my figures to see if i made a mistake on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>so give it a try and report back to us if you have any problems or questions.</p>
<p>i am betting that an error was made so go to that site and good luck.</p>
<p>What was your EFC for one last year?</p>
<p>Last year, EFC for one was $29K. I will try the EFC calculator to double check. Thank you.</p>
<p>I would most definitely check your records and numbers. Are these schools that rely on FASFA numbers only? If so then it's very hard to believe that in theory your EFC doubled? If you're talking private schools then they can choose to use the FAFSA EFC however they see fit along with the PROFILE but even so the results don't seem accurate.</p>
<p>Is EFC by year? I know this must sound like a dumb question.</p>
<p>So, the EFC is for the family? In other words, if you have one child in college and your EFC is 10,000$ for one year, and then the next year, a second child goes to college, all things being the same in terms of income and assets, the EFC remains 10,000 total for both kids???</p>
<p>Yeah- something wrong here.</p>
<p>With FAFSA, when you go from one in college to two in college, it halves the parental contribution to the EFC. Student contribution is usually relatively small-- so unless your kids each had huge assets, the EFC for each should be roughly half of what the EFC for one was (meaning that the combined Expected Family Contribution would remain roughly the same as with one in college). Unless your income went way up this year.</p>
<p>Check the FAFSA and verify that you show two household members in college in 09/10, not one.</p>
<p>The EFC is for the family, LindaCarmichael. There is a student contribution component (unless the family qualifies for automatic 0 EFC), so two students could have a different EFC - basically, the parent & student info is used to compute the EFC, then it is halved if there are two kids in college. So if Suzie earns a bunch more money than Tommy, her EFC could be higher than his.</p>
<p>Grayareagirl, yes, EFC is by year. You file the FAFSA each year, and your EFC can change from year to year.</p>
<p>OP, are you sure you entered two in college in the household info? If not, that's the problem. If so, something else is wrong (unless you made a lot more last year, or your kids have great jobs/a bunch of money saved).</p>
<p>I think that with an EFC of 30K and 29K, even 29K for last year, that the parents are well off and have probably saved significant money for college in the kid's names. When my second started college, the EFC of the first only changed slightly, because most of the money was in his name, not ours.</p>
<p>Well...I can only think of several things...First...as Kelsmom noted, are you sure you put the correct number of members in your household AND the correct number in college? Second...do you have college savings in the kids' names? If so, that would have an impact on the EFC. The college savings in child 2's name would not have been on the FAFSA for child 1, I don't think. Third...do either of your kids have significant income or assets? If so, again...the income and assets of child 1 would not appear on child 2's FAFSA (and the other way too). Fourth...did you have any substantial change in your assets or income over the 2008 calendar year?</p>
<p>Linda,</p>
<p>The "break" is not exactly divided in half. I believe the parental contribution w/ 2 in college is 60% (not 50%) and w/3 in college, it's 40% for each (not 33%). Plus, each student would have to contribute from his savings, income.</p>
<p>
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The "break" is not exactly divided in half. I believe the parental contribution w/ 2 in college is 60% (not 50%) and w/3 in college, it's 40% for each (not 33%).
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For FAFSA this is not correct (don't know about CSS). For FAFSA the parent part of the EFC is divided exactly evenly between the number of students in college. In the EFC formula the parent contribution is calculated then divided by 2 if there are 2 students, by 3 if there are 3 students etc. So if there are 2 students then it is 50% to one and 50% to the other. If there are 3 students it is 33 1/3% to each etc. The student generated part of the EFC stays as is and is not divided between the students.</p>
<p>Profile uses 60%. FAFSA divides EFC evenly by number in college (but it can be different for each of 2 kids due to student info).</p>
<p>I am an adult continuing school. I was laid off in Dec. and cashed out my 401k for personal reasons. When I filed my 2008 taxes the 401k bumped up my AGI and amount of income tax paid in. Now I am collecting unemployment and foodstamps and barely making ends meet. I am single with no dependants. My EFC is aprox. 27000. There is no way I can pay any part of this towards school. Will the state be able to help me based on my current financial woes, and not when I was employed full time last year?</p>
<p>Use the EFC Calculator featured by College Board. The other calculators are inexact and in some cases outdated (as in 2007 vintage) and misleading.</p>
<p>your best bet is to contact the school you want to attend. Any adjustments have to come from their end. Nothing on the fafsa will exclude your 401K income in the formula.</p>