Right…who cares whether we call them middle class or not. On a $125,000 a year income they will have a $30,000 plus family contribution regardless of the name of their economic class.
A FAFSA EFC with that income would actually only be about $15,000. Depending on the circumstances institutional could be lower. I just talked to a family of 3 today that had an income of $123,000 and an institutional EFC of only $11,000. Always use the NPC!
With a $125,000 income the Fafsa EFC would be closer to $30,000 unless they have two kids in college at the same time.
Or if they were attending very generous college where they would be paying 10% of their income and would receive institutional aid for the rest. This is not the rule… But rather the exception.
I missed that they did have two in college for federal. It was been a long summer. The federal EFC with one in college would still have been 26.5 and institutional was based on 1 in college. Point is don’t be so quick to judge and every family should use the NPC for the school they are interested it.
Yes, for many doing the net price calculator is the right thing to do. But folks have to do the NPC for the colleges THEY are applying to…each one…separately. This will give the person a good estimate of their net costs assuming they are not self employed, divorced, or own real estate other than their primary residence.
The same financials put into the Yale NPC will yield a very different result than even the Columbia NPC. And a very different result than for say…Santa Clara University.
Schools have different policies and depth of financial pockets when awarding institutional need based aid.
But really…with a $125,000 income…the EFC per FAFSA would be in the $30,000 range. Unless (as you noted later) there were two kids in college at the same time.
I was not quick to judge. My point is,regardless of whether we call this family middle class or upper middle class, or whatever…their EFC will calculate out the same per the FAFSA formula.
The OP’s parents are paying for private HS. At a minimum, most parents doing that can keep paying that same amount toward college for 4 years.
Regarding @thumper1 pointing out that the FAFSA EFC is in the $30k range for a family (of 3 with one in college) and income of $125k isn’t “judging”, it’s factual, @bschooltotech .
Regarding all the comments about an income of $125K, I’ll just add that an important factor is whether that’s the gross salary/income, or the net after taxes/deductions/retirement contributions/whatever (or even something in between). There can be a significant difference between those two numbers, and someone may be making comments based on reading that number as a net income, whereas someone else may be thinking of it as the gross amount. I perused the thread, and a couple of the links, and didn’t see that distinction mentioned.
And to continue to talk about the household income :)…the median salary for a public school teacher in LA is $62,500 …two teachers married to each other would be $125,000. I guess i’m saying that there are many ways for two people who are in their 40s or 50s (the age where their kids might be in college) to find themselves at this level but not consider themselves wealthy.
When I gave my guestimate of EFC…I based it on GROSS income. The EFC at that gross income level is usually 1/4 to 1/3 of that gross income.
I always use gross income as the determining income. Using the net would be nice for many, but it is that gross which wipes everyone out. Who doesn’t use the gross when looking at these things?
We recently ran an EFC calculator (at collegeboard) and a whole bunch of NPCs (at collegeboard and directly on some college sites), and I don’t think any of them asked for our gross income. It was mostly things from our tax returns, which all had some amount of deductions.
The calculators usually ask for Adjusted gross income, and then add back in some of the deductions or exclusions like 401k contributions. Using actual gross income might be a little high for the calculators, but closer than using net income.
On the net price calculators, use accurate information. As noted above…make sure you include money contributed to tax deferred retirement accounts as untaxed income. Otherwise, your family contribution could,come out lower than it actually is.
Whe I said I used gross income…in my estimating if FAFSA EFC, it’s because in my experience, at the $125,000 a year level, the EFC is 1/4 to 1/3 of the gross income.