Most schools do not meet your need. In other words, the EFC is likely the minimal out of pocket cost. You likely need to cover the gap after financial aid as well.
If your family is low income, then why the highish EFC?
Does your family have a lot in savings?
Do they own a business or take business deductions?
Do they have a lot in home equity?
To clarify: The estimate I gave out was from the College Board CSS Profile aid calculator, and to my knowledge Penn does use CSS Profile to determine need based aid and the EFC. When I used Penn’s net price calculator I got an estimate that was $10,000 a year less than the one you replied to. I am not sure exactly how much aid Penn specifically would award me and have been trying to contact their SFS in regards to the discrepancy.
We have 246,000 in home equity, which kills the aid package unfortunately :(. Do they expect us to take out a home equity loan? refinance our home? do a reverse morgage? sell our house and become homeless? Why is home equity even factored into the EFC?
In income or equity? Many people have $250k in equity.
Disregard the earlier post. I ran out of time while editing
To clarify: The estimate I gave out was from the College Board CSS Profile aid calculator, and to my knowledge Penn does use CSS Profile to determine need based aid and the EFC. When I used Penn’s net price calculator I got an estimate that was $10,000 a year less than the one you replied to. Home equity did not make a difference in the estimate, keeping all other factors constant, I played around with the calculator changing the home value to 400k to $1,000,000 and still it gave me a sub 5k EFC. Though, what made the EFC change with the home value was putting a value other than zero into taxed earned income. This leads me to believe their is some link or multiplier between income and home equity, which I believe to be is adding 6% of the Home Equity Value to the EFC if the home equity is greater than 1.5-2.5 times the taxed earned income level. My parents are retired and make 0$ a year in earned taxable income which i think might have thrown off the Penn NPC estimation. I am not sure exactly how much aid Penn specifically would award me and how accurate the NPC is in this specific circumstance and have been trying to contact their SFS in regards to the discrepancy.
@twoinanddone Equity. We own our 220k-246k home. Does that seem like a lot to colleges like Penn??? Does 15k a year sound high with that home equity combined with our low income level???
Schools that use home equity when determining institutional need-based financial aid usually cap the amount of home equity used at a factor of family income. The spreadsheet available at this website:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/
indicates that Penn caps the home equity at 1.5 to 2.5 X income (warning: data may be outdated). Once you get past a certain amount of home equity, it no longer makes any difference.
@BelknapPoint ohhhhh that clears up sooo much confusion. So basically once the home value exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 times the income it won’t matter anymore. I get it, so its a threshold. Thanks for the clarification!
Do your parents own a business or take business deductions?
Your parents might be retired…but they must have an income of some kind…pension, SS or something.
Did they retire early or are they over 66 years old? If they retired early, perhaps they could consider getting jobs to help with your college costs.
The colleges most likely WILL expect you to pay the family contribution.
If you were to be accepted to Penn, you could ask for the $5500 Direct Loan to supplement the package they give you…as long as the total doesn’t exceed the cost of attendance. Penn does not include loans in their aid packages.
@thumper1 @mom2collegekids No business or deductions. We do get pension and social security benefits (just my dad) , and it is not much. If we didn’t own our home, we’d be considered only 10,000- 15,000 more a year above the poverty level (Family of 3) . It isn’t much. We have a decent amount of savings saved up but not much. Also, my dad’s pension runs out in 10 years, so without his savings money hes basically up a creek. Basically our home and savings is all we got to live on.
If your income is really $35,000 a year, and you get accepted to Penn, you should get an excellent need based aid package.
But you gotta get accepted and right now…that isn’t a slam dunk.
I hope are looking at colleges that are affordable as well…because of either huge merit aid…or because they don’t cost as much.
@thumper1 there’s no way i’m getting in rd so I’m doing ed. Considering the situation is that smart?
from what I’ve heard, you can back out if it isn’t affordable, and that Penn’s financial people are pretty felxible as long as you notify them soon after the acceptance.
If you do not get sufficient need based financial aid, you can decline the admissions offer.
But Make sure your FAFSA and Profile are submitted ASAP when they become available for submission in October.
And send your RD applications out as well. Don’t wait to hear from Penn. If you get accepted, you will be required to withdraw those other applications.
One last question @thumper1 . Is it a myth that if you break the ED decision under any terms you will get put on a list that gets sent around to other colleges and makes you look untrustworthy to Private institutions, hurting your RD chances? Its just something I’ve heard other posters on CC say.
What about your own social security checks? Are you putting that money aside to save for college?
When do you turn 18 and how long has your dad been collecting SS?
Re: breaking ED agreement. There is speculation that some schools do share this data, but it’s speculation.
You get a very small window of time in which to make your decision.
Here is the rub…you could get that ED decision with a financial aid package…and it might be the best one you would get…OR it might be the worst. You have NO way of knowing…because you will,have ONLY that one package.
You could decide to decline that admission offer based on finances only to discover that your RD acceptances are even LESS affordable.
And you will never know if another great school might have offered you a better net cost.
@Madison85 I don’t handle the checks they go right to my dad’s account. He uses my checks to support our entire family along with his checks and his pension. Any extra per year is put into a savings account, not one specifically for college, but for my dad to use once he runs out of pension money. At this point i’m not worried because I’ll figure out a way to cover the EFC one way or another
I doubt that schools are sending lists out when students break ED for the “legal” reasons…can’t afford it.
(I’m using the word “legal” loosely as there is no gov’t law about this.)
If you apply ED, then ALSO apply early to schools that will give you huge merit scholarships for your stats. DON’T wait until after ED decisions and aid are given. That’s too late.
If Penn turns out to be unaffordable, then likely many or all other CSS profile schools will also be unaffordable. So, you may need those financial safeties (huge merit schools) and their merit deadlines are often in the Fall.