<p>Ok, isn't this a bad idea?</p>
<p>My dad has the genius idea to slowly take money out of his bank account, month by month, and keep the cash in his safe until he reaches a low (not too low) amount. He says this will greatly lower my EFC and it will help out my financial aid. I am assuming if it was that easy, everyone would do it.</p>
<p>Edit: When I said "genius" it was purely sarcastic.</p>
<p>Tell your dad to look again at the definition of “assets”. It INCLUDES cash. It doesn’t matter where it’s stashed if you still have it. Not reporting it is FRAUD and could result not only in jeopardizing your financial aid, but also could result in revocation of admissions AND a fine.</p>
<p>This may all be for naught…</p>
<p>What is your family’s income? If it’s high enough, you might not get any free money anyway!</p>
<p>Do they have any investments? Do they own any other assets other than their home?</p>
<p>What schools are you applying to? If they aren’t schools that meet need without loans, this may not amount to anything anyway.</p>
<p>Since assets are only assessed at 5.6%, you would need a couple of safes to hold enough cash to make a huge difference.</p>
<p>For example, hiding $10,000 only lowers your EFC by $560.</p>
<p>And as others have pointed out, cash is a reportable asset (although realistically, there is no way for a school to find out if you have a safe full of money).</p>
<p>Income has much more affect on the EFC than assets unless assets are substantial. As notrich pointed out the maximum amount of assets that goes to the EFC is 5.6%. And parents have a certain amount of protected assets based on the # of parents and the age of the older parent. (for instance a 2 parent family where the older parent is 50 have an asset protection allowance of $52,900 before the assets have any impact).</p>
<p>Well it’s complicated. We will make about 112,000 this year but his taxable income will be around 50k because of some family situations (sister had a baby and they are living with us, plus my brother has a severe mental dissability and numerous medical costs)</p>
<p>so do they use taxable income or gross?</p>
<p>And they don’t have crap in investments besides his tiny 401k amount. I am going to end up paying for most of my college and I want to go to grad school so the less debt the better. After taking money out of bank accounts our EFC is like two grand which is close to being right.</p>
<p>And they don’t own any assets really. We don’t own our home yet, just my crappy car and my moms van.</p>
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<p>You still reported that money, right? I think you still have to even if you take it out of a bank account.</p>
<p>No that isn’t with the cash reported. That is what I was asking in my OP</p>
<p>You don’t use “taxable income”…I think you use AGI. I bet your EFC is going to be much bigger. </p>
<p>Either way, you need to include the cash.</p>
<p>Ok I think I messed up the first time I used the EFC. Under taxable income I was putting his AGI… I got it. After including the cash it really did not make much of a difference so no money stashing will be going on here.</p>
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<p>Well, yeah, if you don’t report a chunk of your assets then of course your EFC will be lower. If your parents falsify their tax returns to make it look like they don’t have any money or jobs, it’ll really lower your EFC.</p>
<p>With a $112k income it is hard to believe your EFC is 2,000. I would expect it to be closer to 20,000. I think you have an error on your FAFSA somewhere.</p>
<p>Thanks Jahaba, I’ll bring that up. Did you notice the topic is over?</p>
<p>With a $112k income it is hard to believe your EFC is 2,000. I would expect it to be closer to 20,000. I think you have an error on your FAFSA somewhere.</p>
<p>Swimcatsmom is right. With that income, your EFC would be a lot higher. Are you sure you’re putting in the right numbers.</p>
<p>Obviously, your father doesn’t care about teaching his son about integrity and honesty.</p>
<p>To be honest, I do not know if i did it correctly. I’m assuming not. </p>
<p>@Battlo- Obviously, you don’t know all of the details. My dad read about it online and told me to bring it up on here because I told him about how great this site was. </p>
<p>ALSO I was the one that filled out the EFC Calc. and did not notice (or mention) the fact that cash was considered an Asset. </p>
<p>So, I have no problem if you say I have no morals or whatever you want. But, do not insult my father on a mere idea that he was exploring to attempt to lower my future debt as much as possible.</p>
<p>@swimcats mom- There is no way my family could be expected to contribute about 1/5 of their gross income before deductions etc every year. Unless EFC is over a 4 year period, 20k can not be right.</p>
<p>Sorry NWgolfer - they do expect your family to contribute that much!!!</p>
<p>No one here can guess at what your EFC is. We can say that 2000 is unrealistically low, based on having simple math skills and knowledge of how the FAFSA rates income. What you should do is use one of the financial aid estimators on this site or on the FAFSA.gov website and fill it out using real information; this will tell you how much your EFC might be. Then you can use legal ways to reduce that EFC is if it’s unsatisfactory and keep in mind that the school might recalculate it anyway.</p>
<p>Great!!! State College here i come!!!</p>
<p>But no seriously. Won’t they factor in things like my brothers massive medical bills and the fact that my parents have 4 dependents in their household? Or 3 college students?</p>
<p>No EFC is for one year. EFC is based on income and assets. With an income of $112,000 (and not accounting for any assets) I would expect your EFC to be close to 20,000. An EFC of 2,000 would be likely with a much, much lower income (more in the $40,000 or less range). Make sure you entered the AGI for income. It is the AGI you must report, not taxable income.</p>
<p>If your family has high medical expenses there is no way of showing that on FAFSA. But you can contact your schools and ask for a special circumstances adjustment to reflect your situation.</p>
<p>Yes having 3 college students at the same time will reduce your EFC considerably. The part of the FAFSA EFC generated by parent income and assets is divided between the number that are in college at the same time. if you have other siblings in college then hasn’t your family been through the FAFSA process before?</p>