Some random questions…forgive me for any obvious gaps in my understanding of how need-based aid works. For those schools that “meet need” - what AGI is the realistic cutoff for schools to award need-based aid? And what about schools that don’t promise to meet need, but to help close the gap a bit between EFC and sticker price? In general, I’m wondering if there’s any reason to look at schools that far exceed our EFC (aside from targeting schools with good merit aid). Any advice appreciated!
It’s a school by school formula - and it’s not just looking at income.
So the question really can’t be answered.
btw - EFC, for many private schools, even most - isn’t looked at. They look deeper through the CSS profile and come up with their own calculations.
Schools that offer merit or promise to meet need could be worth a look.
You are best to fill out their net price calculator to see what it says it would cost you but to also consider schools that offer merit - especially those with auto tables so you know up front what you’d get.
Good luck.
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Be aware that some of these private schools that come up with their own calculations label the result as “EFC,” or Expected Family Contribution, just as FAFSA does. This can obviously lead to some confusion, when different results from two separate processes are called the same thing. Just make sure you know which process you are talking about or referring to when you use the term EFC. Fortunately, with the proposed upcoming major changes to FAFSA, the FAFSA use (or misuse) of the term EFC will go away, and will be replaced by SAI, or Student Aid Index.
Typically you can find a Net Price Calculator on the university financial aid website. It will ask for some high level financial information and give you an estimate of what they would offer in financial aid. In my experience they were pretty accurate.
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Some schools divulge this on their websites (but at most of these schools assets will also be part of the calculation of what the school believes the family can contribute). Regardless, run each school’s net price calculator to get an estimated cost.
Again, start with the NPCs. For schools that use merit grids you can layer than on, if not included in the NPC. Some of these schools will make better FA offers to the students they really want, including meeting full need for some students.
Are you talking about FAFSA EFC? If the NPCs (whether the school uses FAFSA only or FAFSA plus CSS) are far above your family’s budget, it might not make sense to apply. Look to the CDS to see what proportion of students receive merit aid/discounts and how much on average as another data point. This number might help you decide where it might make sense to still apply (as well as merit grids as noted above).
For a single source providing cost information on dozens of partner colleges, this site can be helpful:
I posted a version of the following on another thread awhile back, take for what it’s worth:
When making D22’s college spreadsheet, we carefully noted schools with published household income thresholds to be eligible for full cost-of-attendance and/or full tuition aid. There were at least 15 back then in early 2021 (perhaps a few more that we didn’t catch b/c schools like MIT and Caltech were never on her list), and here were the thresholds at the time, with “xxx” meaning that there was no particular threshold for guaranteed full tuition but similar levels of aid would likely be offered based on some other formula or method:
Harvard - Income under 65k gets full COA/under 150k gets at least full tuition
Stanford - 75/150
Rice - 65/130 (now 75/140)
Yale - 75/xxx
Princeton - 65/160
Penn - 65/140
UChicago - 60/125
Duke - 60/xxx
Brown - 60/xxx
Columbia - 60/xxx
UVa - 30/80
USC - none/80
WashU - none/75
Tulane - none/75
UT-Austin - none/60
It was never clear to me whether the income numbers used for this calculation were gross or AGI. Our experience at Rice suggests AGI, but I would guess that it may vary between schools. Many of these numbers are likely outdated now, as there has been an “arms race” among these schools to raise the thresholds (as the recent Princeton increase to 100k for full COA shows). And likely other schools have gone to this model - there seems to be a general trend of shifting aid resources away from traditional merit programs like Natl Merit that often disproportionately helped affluent students and toward higher levels of need-based aid. This is obviously great news for families on the lower end of the donut hole whose students are competitive for admission to these schools.
And don’t forget the typical - assumes typical assets or whatever similar words the schools disclaim with.
I was in the income bracket for W&L where 88% of people got $38K on average. I was in the other 12% due to assets and my daughter got $0.
I asked what were normal assets. And I was told - 2x salary.
So that was less than $400K at the time.
A Cornell aid officer told me if you have $1 million in assets (I forget if that included retirement, home equity), that you were getting nothing.
So the tables are nice and most at those incomes likely don’t have significant assets - but some do - and if you do, you could very well be left out.
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Fair point. Different schools treat home equity differently, but if you have $1 million in liquid assets, you are probably not getting any aid from any school, even with income inside these thresholds.
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That’s what Cornell told me - hence I didn’t allow my daughter to apply. Well, she wanted Ivy - I said you could apply for sport - but she decided it wasn’t worth it.
The W&L example - I thought was telling.
But again, each school counts differently and admittedly, my assets are high based on my income - but I’m surely not the only one.
@tsbna44 They have to have that rule. Otherwise parents would “retire” to get a low income on the books, while having $3m in assets.
Oh, and it’s always AGI, but the colleges can choose to exclude certain tax deductions and add them back in to your AGI.
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