My efc is 20,000 and it seems a little high.

Hello everyone. I have a question for you all. My mother is a single mother and her agi is 79,650. Does an efc of 20k sound about right? we have no other kids in college and are a 2 person household (her and me) and she gets no child support. Any help will be appreciated. PS excuse all errors as i’m on very little sleep. And also if i can get into a top LAC is it worth it to pay the 20,000 iyho? thanks again!

It really depends on her assets. If she has (or you have) savings, it adds to your efc.

With an $80,000 income and a family of two, that $20,000 EFC sounds about right to me.

It’s only worth it to pay if you actually have the money to do so.

That sounds right. Since there is only one adult in the family, the calculation is harsher. Also, there is only one child, so again, harsher.


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also if i can get into a top LAC is it worth it to pay the 20,000 iy

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what is YOUR mom saying? Only SHE knows whether SHE can afford to pay that $20k per year bill. If she can’t, then the question is moot.

Is this $20,000 number from the net price calculators on the school websites?

A couple of things.

  1. Most top LACs require the CSS Profile in addition to your FAFSA. And many require non-custodial parent information. If your dad is alive, his information might be required.
  2. Is your SAT really 1660, or am I misreading that other thread? Which top LACs have you applied to?

if we have say 40 thousand in assets but she doesn’t have a house and then buys a house and that goes down to say 15,000 then how much do you think the efc would be changed? this is on the fafsa website. I used quite a few other calculators and it said around 15k which is much much more reasonable for us to do. And BTW i’m a recruited athlete.

Also if i get the financial aid and then ontop get a merit scholarship with they add up or only take the highest one? thanks for the help. @thumper1 @mom2collegekids

40,000 in assets would not really add much to your family contribution per FAFSA. Your mom has an asset protection allowance. Any amount above that would be assessed as part of your EFC at 5.6% of its value. That $40,000 asset would add about $2500 to your EFC if all of it was counted. My guess is most is under the asset protection amount.

Re Merit aid. If you get a merit,scholarship…at most colleges this will,actually reduce your financial need…so your need based aid will be less.

Are you a division 1 recruited athlete who will get a good athletic scholarship?

Merit scholarships get applied first. Then aid.

If you’re a recruited athlete, does that mean that you’ll get some athletic scholarship money?

Which schools are recruiting you?

What is your mom saying about how much she’ll pay each year?

If you’ve already filled out FAFSA (not just a FAFSA calculator) and you’ve already indicated that your mom has $40k in assets, you can’t change that on FAFSA until you do NEXT year’s FAFSA.

When is your mom going to buy a home? very soon?

I could play d2 or a low spot on a d1 but I want my focus to be more on school and I know tons of friends who play at Syracuse, UCF, etc and they all say that it is extremely hard to focus on schooling because most of their time is dedicated to their sport. That’s why I figured I could go to a d3, get a decent amount of financial aid and play my sport there yet my focus would be on education rather than vice versa. she said about max she can pay is 12-13 a year but I would also take out the federal loan of 5500 on top of that. She has florida pre-paid (2 years at university/2 at a CC) and I can go to ucf for about 13k a year but I feel a top LAC would be better personally. @mom2collegekids Also my Css profile said I would have to pay about 13k a year. That also took into account medical expenses. We paid like 14k in medical expenses this year and last year also but the Fafsa didn’t ask about that. Should I let the school know about the 14k medical expenses?

You could try a few colleges’ net price calculators.

The CSS Profile does NOT give an amount you would be laying for college. What are you talking about?

Where is your dad? Is he alive?

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about max she can pay is 12-13 a year but I would also take out the federal loan of 5500 on top of that


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You will already have a $5500 loan in your FA pkg going towards “need”, so you can’t use it towards EFC.


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Also my Css profile said I would have to pay about 13k a year.

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??

what do you mean by that? CSS Profile doesn’t give an EFC.

Do any of your CSS Profile schools require the financial info from your dad?

@mom2collegekids no filed a non-custodial parent waiver. My bad about css profile I got confused. Only thing known about my father is his name. When my EFC says 20,000 does that include food plan, books and supplies, personal expenses and transportation? Because I did a net price calculator on one of the coleges and it says I would need to comeup with 18k leftover at a LAC but food, transportation, personal expenses, and books were included. If EFC includes those things then I guess its not that far off.

COA = total costs (tuition, dorm, meals, books, fees, travel, misc expenses)

I’m not sure what you mean by: When my EFC says 20,000 does that include food plan, books and supplies, personal expenses and transportation.

EFC is kind of a misleading name though since it makes it sound as if that’s the maximum you will have to pay when it’s really more like an index that the financial aid office uses to calculate your eligibility for certain forms of need-based aid like the Stafford loan, the Pell Grant, federal work/study, etc. The EFC is in no way calibrated towards the cost of attendance of the college, or towards tuition, or anything else like that; when you calculate your EFC that’s one number, but there are colleges whose total cost (including food plan, books, etc.) is less than that as well as colleges whose costs are more than that but won’t offer you any financial aid at all because they don’t have any.

The net price calculator is what I would use to actually get a good grasp of what you will likely have to pay at each school.

Athletes at D3 schools don’t receive athletic scholarship money, correct?

@mom2collegekids when it says efc does that cover COA or just tuition and Room and board?

@madison85 yes but sometimes they can give you the money through different ways although it wouldn’t be much.

EFC doesn’t cover anything. Your question does not make sense.

Generally, EFC is the minimum you will have to pay.

At schools that don’t meet need, you will be gapped.

Gap is the difference between EFC and COA.

Try the NPC on the colleges you are considering.