My EFC wasn't 0, will this effect my grants and scholarships?

So, my family’s financial situation hasn’t been the best the past few years. My mom can’t seem to keep a job and we’ve been evicted on multiple occasions. Anyway, I filled out a net price calculator for the college I’ll be attending and I put what I thought my mom’s income was for 2015 and my efc was 0. Because of this I had the maximum amount of state grant awarded to me. I just submitted my fafsa and my efc came out to 2305 dollars. Apparently my mom took out the money she’s collected for social security and used that for our income the year. There’s no way my mom can give me that much for school because all that money is gone. Could I still get the maximum amount of state grants?

What do you mean your mom “took out money she’s collected for social security”? You can’t withdraw social security funds until you are eligible to start collecting. If your mom collects SS, this is income.

Also, keep in mind…that $2305 EFC is the minimum schools will exoect you to pay for college. Most colleges do NOT meet full need.

Where are you applying to college? Are these schools that meet full need for all?

I’m not exactly sure. That’s what she told me, but then again she doesn’t like to discuss finances with me, so when I ask her questions about money she tends to give me not complete answers or tell me things that aren’t true so I can stop bugging her.
I’ve applied to 4 schools and the one in enrolling in says 99% of students receive financial aid.

Run the NPC again for the school you want to go to. EFC doesn’t tell you how much you will end up paying. Sometimes the NPC will come out more or less than the EFC. $2305 really isn’t that much I don’t see it affecting your aid that much depending on the COA of the school. Also with a part time job or work study you can paid that yourself.

It sounds like the mom took out money from her 401k (or similar) retirement acct.

Well my schools cost of attendance is 37,850 (not including books and personal costs) and I’ve already been awarded a annual scholarship of 16,500 by the school so I need a way to pay for the remaining 21,350. When I ran the npc I was basically awarded with enough state grants and work study to leave me with only 10,000 to pay for in loans, but I’m worried this will mo longer be the case since my efc isn’t 0.

@mom2collegekids That may be it, but I’m not too sure.

What school is this, and how are you planning to come up with that much money?

@CTTC Bloomfield College. I’m depending on NJ state grants to help with at least half since my family’s income is very low. I’ve also been applying to other scholarships like crazy. They’re all small local scholarships (most between $500-$2,00) because I don’t have the grades to apply for bigger ones. I’m hoping since they’re so small and not well known I’ll have a good chance of receiving a few of them. The remaining cost will have to be paid by loans.

How much in loans do you anticipate taking out each year?

Are you looking at med school in the future? Wondering because of your username?

@BelknapPoint Well, I would like to keep my loans under $10,000 a year, hopefully less. I plan on going to grad school to my masters in social work so I don’t want to go to far into debt during my undergrad years

There aren’t more affordable schools in NJ where your cost after scholarship would not be > $20k?

Rowan, Stockton, TCNJ?

@mommdc I made this back in my sophomore year when I though health care was my calling…after almost failing biology I decided it wasn’t for me, haha. And I thinks it’s too late for me to apply to any more schools, but out of the other schools I got into one was in the 50,000s, one was a county college so its obviously the cheapest option, and the other one was pretty cheap after the scholarship I reviewed but I like Bloomfield a lot more

???

Did you run the NPC again?

Having an EFC of ‘not zero’ doesn’t tell us much. If you got a full Pell grant of $5800 and a large state grant ( often based on the efc generated by the fafsa, of course it is going to change. If your EFC is now $7000, you’re not going to get any Pell money, and we don’t know about state grants. If your EFC is now $3000, you’ll still get some Pell money, and likely some state money.

I think you need to consider community college to start out. If you want to go get an MSW, that degree, while rewarding and heartfelt, doesn’t lead to a high paying job. If you start out with 40,000 in debt, probably not going to be able to live outside your Mom’s basement. Since you said she isn’t too good with money, you may want to seek outside guidance from someone who is. Relative, family friend, someone.

Have you heard of the NJ Stars program and if not, investigate and see if you are eligible. This would pay your tuition for two years at community college. Off the top of my head I think you need to be top 15% at the end of your jr year OR top 15% at the end of sr yr. Paying $50 or $60,000 a year just seems like a bad idea.

Have you looked at Ramapo? State school, reasonable COA (like 28,000) and gives good merit aid. Something to consider for sure. You may like Bloomfield, but I don’t think you’ll like having a huge loan payment for years and years.

@NJRoadie I’ve greatly considered community college and there’s actually a really great cc in my home town, but my mom wants to move down south as soon as I graduate (since its a lot cheaper there). I would love to attend the cc in my town but I’d have no one to stay with.

Remember too that being in social work you’ll get paid in peanuts so even if you could get a lot of big loans you’d never be able to pay that back on a social work salary. Only saving grace is some of the programs were they place you in disadvantaged areas and your loans are therefore forgiven.