Schools not coming close to my EFC

Mom of 3. Oldest getting into the colleges he applied to and receiving scholarship $. Some of these schools are not coming anywhere near what we can afford! My EFC according to the fafsa is $20,000. One excellent out of state Jesuit institution is setting us at $37,000 tuition. One OKAY OOP private college has us paying $30,000. I am trying to figure out if I should appeal some of these decisions or not? A local excellent private catholic college has our tuition down to $14,000 since he received a scholarship. advice since I’m a total newbie. Honestly, I’m a stay at home mom and my husband is a public school teacher. Why do they think we can pay that??? Any refreshing advice is appreciated. Thanking you in advance!

*he would commute to the local private excellent institution.

Did you run each school’s NPC before applying? If so, were those results close to your EFC?

Do the colleges meet 100% of demonstrated need? If not, that could be the reason.

Did any of those schools require you file the CSS? Sometimes schools can have a different view of what one’s need actually is.

Appealing is unlikely to be fruitful unless their is some type of mistake and/or your financial situation has changed. Some schools will reassess fin aid if a peer school gives a higher aid package. Of course, you can still appeal and try.

The FAFSA EFC has little to no bearing on what a college will expect you to pay. Colleges are not obligated in any way to limit what they charge you to the FAFSA EFC amount. The FAFSA EFC is used primarily to determine eligibility for federal grants, subsidized loans and work study, and also some states use it to calculate state financial aid.

It’s unrealistic to think that all schools should “come close” to the FAFSA EFC.

thank you! i filled out the CSS for those schools that require it. we have options as stated above, but it really shocks me that a school will expect us to pay nearly double our EFC. what’s even the point? I laugh to keep from crying :-*

as someone new to all of this I am learning all of these things!

They aren’t expecting you to pay double your EFC. Your FAFSA EFC is only used to calculate Pell Grant eligibility. Colleges calculate their own EFCs.

How much can you afford to pay? Have you run each college’s Net Price Calculator to get an estimate of costs?

we can afford about $15000 without loans. most likely DS will end up at a very good local school and commute.

The vast majority of schools do not have the deep pockets required to meet the need of all students admitted. Glad you have an affordable option. Good luck.

The FAFSA EFC should be viewed as the bare minimum you will be expected to pay at most colleges. Most colleges do not meet full financial need for all students. It sounds like your kiddo applied to colleges that do not pledge to meet full need for all. That being the case, the only guaranteed aid you would receive is a Direct Loan…$5500 for freshman year.

It sounds like your daughter got some school grant money, just not enough to bring the costs down to where you expected them to be.

Did you use the college net price calculators before the application list was made?

It sounds like she has a good, affordable option in the school near home.

Apologies if I’m missing something, but was the COA considered before applying? Did the NPC tell you that your COA would be $20k? If so, you can have a conversation with the school. If not, I’m not sure why you applied and what you were expecting. Good luck.

eb- she applied because like many people new to this experience she thought the EFC was the most she would be expected to pay Please, don’t act like this is unheard of. And for the record, out EFC was very close to every NPC calculation we did.

Even at the bare minimum we could never afford $20,000 per year! It’s pretty disturbing how all these colleges woo you to come there, then Leave you not affording them. Too bad there wasn’t a short cut at the beginning-TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DONT MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO COME HERE! WE WON’T EVER GIVE YOU ENOUGH!

I knew going into this that cost would be the only factor in determining where he would go so i made sure he applied to local schools that gave money (as demonstrated above) and have him live at home. Also he has applied to outside scholarships from the union, etc. so i have been exploring each and every option.

Thank you to the group for broadening my understanding of this topic.

The point of the FAFSA is to see if you qualify for FEDERAL aid. Some schools also use it to award need based aid, but they don’t have to use the EFC or any number when deciding who gets their $$$ or if anyone at all gets the money.

Schools set the cost of tuition and fees and other fun stuff like room and board, but you have to decide if you can afford it. Are you shocked when you go to the grocery store and they expect you to pay full price for the groceries, even though the woman in front of you earns more money and can afford to pay more than you? Are you shocked at the movies when all the tickets cost the same and aren’t discounted?

@BronxBaby just so you know, the NPC stands for the Net Price Calculator, found on most college websites. Look those up to see if they are affordable.

My family is in a similar situation than you - except we have an EFC of zero. Everyone on this sight is very, very helpful with the college admissions process and helping you look for affordable options.

OP, I understand. It can be quite an unhappy surprise to get financial aid packages that are nowhere near what you can pay. It’s not clear whether you ran the Net Price Calculators for any of these schools, so you will know to do that for the younger kids. You will also want to research whether schools “meet full need” - those will be the most generous, but are also usually the harder schools to get into. Good luck to you. I’m glad your son has a viable alternative.

The Net Price Calculator that is available on every college’s website is the “short cut at the beginning”.

Only a few, very competitive private colleges promise to meet your financial need. And even then, it is the college that decides what your need is, not your FAFSA EFC. As others have said, the EFC exists to determine federal loan and grant eligibility.

You are far from alone in just finding this out. I didn’t discover this site until after older son had applied to colleges he was interested in and I was distraught that his top ones were unaffordable. It was overwhelming to discover how much some schools expected us to pay, or borrow. None were equal to the FAFSA EFC. i didn’t understand that then either. Even though I’d done a lot of research otherwise it was a big education once I started reading threads here. With the next two I went into the process with those lessons front and center. And of course as acceptances are coming in I’m hearing other parents who are shell shocked about how little they are getting at various schools their children really wanted to attend.

And another thing I didn’t understand is that when S17 got a nice scholarship at an early acceptance school, and I’d run the NPC and saw that he should get some financial aid that would have together brought the price down to what we could realistically afford, that the school did not stack scholarship and financial aid. The scholarship WAS the financial aid.

You are saying these are the amounts without loans figured in? I think even most colleges that do meet full need do so with at least the student federal loans figured into the calculation (5500 for freshmen, etc). If you are trying to find an option that does not necessitate any loans, it’s most likely going to be one where your child’s stats automatically get them full tuition or more. Only a very small handful of highly selective colleges are going to offer financial need packages that don’t include loans.