I put “worth” in quotes because it is very valuable to me, but I literally called NYSTRS and they said they can’t assign a number to the value, too many variables. So I want to answer the question but what am I supposed to do? Assuming I had a pension of $50K if I retire at 55. Do I predict I’ll live until 85 and multiply the $50K by 30? My understanding is that my pension contributions will give them a good idea of my retirement savings and that is reported in the salary part. I have called my retirement pension group, the CSS helpline and colleges who require the CSS and nobody can answer my question definitively as to how I should answer it or if I actually need to report anything re: my pension (estimate, guess, etc.) for that retirement savings section. It’s frustrating. But I didn’t mean to imply that a pension is worthless. Just the opposite! I am blessed to be a teacher in NYS (and I love my job) employed with a generous state pension and in a district with a strong union. I’d be happy to report a number in that section, but can’t get any solid guidance.
It does ask for the amount put into tax-deferred savings (including retirement accounts), however. I had thought that that got added back into earnings when computing EFC.
I believe they do count any (voluntary) retirement contributions. Those contribution amounts are considered income for need-based aid purposes. That doesn’t meant they are going to assess the entire amount as available for college any more than they assess any other part of your income at 100%. But they absolutely consider that income that you can choose to spend as you want. Otherwise, why wouldn’t we all just overfund our retirement accounts with what we’d otherwise spend on college? It has to be considered income for EFC calculation purposes.
I just went and looked it up and y’all are right - they don’t count the total amount as an investment at all, but FAFSA does count the contribution amount.
Fantastic! Congratulations GKmom23!
Hence it’s much better to fund a Roth 401(K) during FAFSA/CSS years if you expect to get need-based aid. That way you can deduct the tax paid from your reported income.
This is a rough country. College is much cheaper in Europe and they give everyone a pension in England.
On the other hand, you can still afford to heat your home this winter…
Assuming you don’t live in Texas.
Ok, submitted FAFSA form and it immediately showed a number which is way higher than I was expecting.
My question: Is the number shown after submission final one or it will be sent after 3-5 days in the Student Aid Report?
hahaha, oh, that’s it, welcome to reality as FAFSA sees it.
you have my sympathies
Ours too. 
Our EFC was 5K higher than any of the estimators I ran, and significantly above anything we could actually afford. All the estimators I ran prior to Oct 1 put our CSS EFC ~10-20K lower, so I hope that is correct, at least.
Now is the time to request SaT and ACT scores be sent to colleges to which you are applying early! Many are fine with self reported now but many (including seemingly most state schools) still need official score reports it seems.
The basic rule of college finances: The EFC will always, always, be higher than any reasonable human being outside of a college financial aid office would reasonably expect.
Yeah it’s a shocker the first time you see. It’s completely unhinged from reality. I was super excited that my EFC went down so much bc I’ll have 2 kids in college next year, except that the EFC is for each of them individually (I think?) and combined it’s even higher than it was with just one.
I’m freaking out about this a bit because I’ve read that starting next year (when my second is applying for college) the FAFSA will stop splitting the EFC between the 2 kids and will just double it–whatever you have currently for one kid in college, that number will apply to EACH kid in college starting Fall 2024. That would literally be within 10K our entire family income, which seems crazy.
I will ask my Kid to explore 2-year free Community college option and find out about TAG programs which gives guaranteed transfer to UCs.
Just remember, folks, the FAFSA doesn’t do diddly for you, unless you’re at the Pell Grant level.
All it does is say what one federal agency thinks you should be paying for college.
If you apply to selective colleges, including meets-need schools, they mostly require the much-more-invasive CSS, which may – or may not – be better for you. But less than 100 schools meet full need. Thousands of others don’t.
The EFC is just a number. It’s a useless number imbued with a whole bunch of significance it doesn’t deserve.
I ignore it. In most cases, I recommend you do the same.
Good advice. Data point of one: our parent contribution has nearly matched our EFC for a meets-need school that also requires the CSS profile. The first time I thought it was a fluke, but it has happened every year since.
I have the opposite question. We aren’t applying for financial aid and I don’t want to disclose any financial info. That seems fine for all colleges except UWashington which still seems to ask for parent income data in the parent info section of its app? @JBSeattle Do you know?