Is this EFC high? Help!

Hi everyone. My EFC on the FAFSA for all of my schools is 85,000. Is that considered high? I’m just kind of confused with everything.

If your FAFSA EFC is 85K, you are officially wealthy. Not middle classed, wealthy. This will mean that you will not get FA of any help anywhere IMO. Why are you confused? You are a senior, did you have a money talk with your parents? Did you run NPCs? Why is your EFC a surprise NOW?

@Sybylla my father had a very very high paying job and lost it when i was in eighth grade. my mother works, but part time, making around 50k per year. all of the money that my dad has is in the stock market and retirement funds that he has had to go into. we were just all kind of shocked that they could expect us to pay 85k per year when my dad has been unemployed for four years now and my mom just has a part time job. is there any way to get financial aid?

Your dad has loadsa money in stocks, he can sell some stocks to send you to school. OR you do what most kids do, go to your local 4 yr. His retirement funds are not calculated in the FAFSA EFC, but your CSS/profile schools may assess differently. You have home equity of significance? You have applied to profile schools? Your stats won’t give you a full ride anywhere IFAIKS, maybe some of the auto merit schools are worth a look for close to it.

@aserto009

If your EFC is $85,000 a year…you must have a VERY high amount of assets. VERY high.

What was your parent combined income for 2016? $50,000 would be too high to qualify for the simplified needs test in terms of income.

On your $50,000 mom income, I would expect about $5500 in an EFC. So…you have $80,000 based on your parent unearned income…interest or cashing in of stocks, etc.

But I have to say…with an EFC of $85,000…your family has income of some sort of about $250,000. Either that or a HUGE amount in assets. Or both.

Either that…or you made a huge mistake on the fafsa.

Something isn’t right with your story. Most folks without jobs don’t have THAT high an EFC.

If your mom pulls in $50k working part-time, she’s earning more than ~$25/hour. Can she pick up some extra hours and put that money toward your tuition?

Can your dad get a part time job also?

You are forgetting the income that your parents are making each year off of those stocks.

Your family isn’t likely living on $50k per year. And yes, why isn’t your mom working more hours? And why hasn’t your dad gotten some kind of job…any job…anywhere? With that kind of past earnings, likely he could have gotten some sort of consulting job…even if only part time.

I’m guessing that because the investments are bringing in enough money, along with mom’s part time income, the parents see no need to bring in more income. That’s fine…but the income from the investments/dividends, etc …as well as the investments themselves are driving up the EFC

Take a look at your FAFSA…look at how much is in assets…look at how much is in INCOME from those assets (dividends and when stocks rise and your parents sell some of that to spend.)

<<<is there="" any="" way="" to="" get="" financial="" aid?="">>>

Need based? No. Did you apply to any schools that give merit for your stats?

No school costs $85k per year, so you wouldn’t pay that much anywhere. How much does each school cost that accepted you?

BTW…how much did your parents expect to contribute each year towards college??

And check your fafsa entries for errors.

How much did your dad take out of his pre tax retirement savings in 2016. That would count!!!


[QUOTE=""]
some additional information is that my top schools are Villanova, Bucknell, Colgate, Syracuse, Lafayette, UConn--- all pretty competitive.

[/QUOTE]

I received the Fordham Jogues Scholarship for $10,000 a year, the Fordham Tuition Award for $11,500 a year, and a loan for $5,500 a year, totaling to $27,000 a year.

My stats are 3.8 W GPA, 1410 SAT, good EC’s/great essay & recs.


[QUOTE=""]

[/QUOTE]

New Jersey resident
Asian and Spanish

So, is Fordham affordable with $27k in aid awarded?

You applied to a lot of expensive privates and OOS publics. Did you apply to any safety schools??? Those would be schools that you can afford and would admit you.

What is your major and career goal?

Did your dad withdraw from a pretax retirement account? I’m thinking that he’s managing his stock portfolio, buying and selling, and using some profits/dividends to supplement wife’s income.

I have a BIL who no longer works because his “job” is managing their investments…which are profitable (and drive up income which gets added to wife’s job income). Maybe that’s what this dad is doing.

First, should your parents have the capital gain on the tax return as part of the income if your dad has a lot of stocks?
FAFSA calculate your EFC mainly on income and then on assets. If you made no mistake in entering the data, you should be able to tell how rich your family is from the numbers you entered.

NJ has lots of good public schools that cost less than 30K for in state students. Your stats can knock that down to 20K at some of them

Recheck your Fafsa then recheck your options

How much can your parents pay? In another thread you said you have a 1410 SAT and 4.0 W GPA. Did you apply to any schools that offer merit? Are there any state schools in NJ that are affordable?

^^
@JerseyParents are any of them still awarding merit to new applicants?

From the posting history, it appears that this student spent a lot of time looking at pricey schools to apply to without any consideration of cost. (A big failure with the Chance threads is that you have a bunch of 17/18 year olds chancing each other and no one talks about affordability/financial safety schools, etc…totally the blind leading the blind.)

Strange that parents with so much money invested never thought to consider that schools would expect them to pay, and the parents never looked into cost/NPC, etc.

^ that’s why I try to go to these threads but it’s kind of discouraging because very few kids think money is a factor.

@aserto009 :
How much can your parents afford?
Have you run the NPC and shown them the results?
Check the FAFSA and CSS profile carefully in case you made a mistake. An extra zero somewhere…

An important variable we don’t know is the parents’ ages. Are they in their 40’s or 50’s with many potential earning years ahead of them? Or are they 60’s, nearing retirement and that’s why the father hasn’t gone back to working? If it’s the latter, I can understand this situation a bit better. If not, well, hopefully the father can find work.

Also, it is possible to have a significant amount of non-retirement assets and still have the reality of paying $65k per year eating away at those assets feel like it is unrealistic. Our FAFSA EFC was $89,000. We don’t have all of our investment assets in retirement vehicles because we prefer some unpenalized liquidity prior to ages 62-65, in case of emergency or the potential of retiring prior to those ages. The reality is that the majority of those assets are going to be used as retirement assets even though we have not protected them as such. Unfortunately, our choice for greater financial flexibility at younger ages meant more of the assets were considered available as college funds. I knew that would hurt us come FAFSA time, but that was a trade off I was willing to accept. Thank goodness for a hardworking daughter who was awarded significant merit and no job loss…we are still earning income and building assets.

In the case of this family, who appear to be living in large-part off of similarly unproatected assets due to job loss, when that significant amount is decreasing through withdrawals, no additional income is coming in, and that amount is meant to get you to retirement age and potentially beyond, a reduction of $275K or so still feels like a big hit to their future financial security. But it also feels like they didn’t do their homework when putting together the list…they needed to include more affordable options.

@pishicaca both of my parents are 59. My dad has gone on plenty of interviews and my mom is looking to get a full time job, nothing has been successful yet.

@aserto009

To get to an EFC of $85,000, your parents needed to have some sort of income that was in the $250,000 a year plus range for 2016…OR they withdrew a HUGE amount from tax deferred accounts OR they sold off a lot of high priced assets.

In any event…you need to look at colleges where you can pay th costs OR receive enough merit aid that the remaining costs can be covered by your family.

You won’t be receiving need based aid with an EFC of $85,000.

So…your parent (mom) earned income was $50,000 or so. But what was your family additional income…unearned…asset interest or dividends, withdrawal from tax deferred retirement accounts, etc. AND what are their remaining assets…because those assets are also tapped.

<<<
both of my parents are 59. My dad has gone on plenty of interviews and my mom is looking to get a full time job, nothing has been successful yet.


[QUOTE=""]

[/QUOTE]

Well, sit down with your parents and go over your FAFSA inputs to make sure the numbers are correct.

And also discuss with them how much they’re willing to contribute each year towards college. Did they give you an amount when you were creating your app list?

Also, ask them if Fordham is affordable since it may be your lowest cost school at this point. Or do you have other schools with lower net costs?

It appears that your parents may have 1M+ in unprotected assets that are also generating income/dividends.