Question re: Employer Tuition Benefit

<p>I am the parent of a high school senior and am fortunate to work at a university that offers a generous tuition benefit for dependent children (worth up to $15,000 depending on the cost of the college my stepson will attend). However, we are curious how this might affect our Expected Family Contribution (EFC). Do we get to include this as part of our EFC? We have completed the FAFSA and our estimated EFC is quite high, so we are hoping that the estimate includes the tuition benefit. Thanks in advance for any insight or advice you might have! Kelly</p>

<p>It will probably be counted as part of your EFC.</p>

<p>We have that situation and DS's school counted it as an outside scholarship and it reduced the awarded grant amount, changed federal work-study to campus job, and changed subsidized loan to unsubsidized loan. Still in the end it is a nice chunk of change to have available and it did reduce what we had to pay out of pocket. But it would have been nice if the original award had stayed the same.</p>

<p>Every school may handle it differently.</p>

<p>We also have a sizable tuition benefit. It did not count as part of our EFC. In other words, it will reduce your need-based aid package. However, some colleges will use it to replace the loan & work study portion of your package first, giving you a package that consists entirely of grants--some from the college and some from your employer. That is how Pomona handled it for our oldest son, and since they have extra on-campus jobs, he was able to work and receive additional funds beyond his aid package. Since our EFC was very managable, he will be graduating debt-free.<br>
Some colleges, though, will just subtract it off your grant, which doesn't really gain you anything.</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses, although that was not really what I wanted to hear! I guess in a couple more weeks we will know for sure what the aid packages look like.</p>