I received my EFC code of 008442. Can someone please explain what it is and means? I haven’t seen it anywhere.
It means they think your family can afford $8442 each year towards your education.
It means that for schools using the FAFSA to determine need based aid awards…your family will be expected to pay AT LEAST $8442 for one year.
Please pay attention to the “AT LEAST” in above post. That does NOT mean schools will necessarily give you financial aid equal to the remainder of cost. And some that say they meet full need include loans in the package which may or may not work for you. Research schools with eye to the details.
It means your EFC is too high for a Pell grant.
What state do you live in?
EFC is expected family contribution. Colleges that cover “full need” will give you an aid package that gets you close to that amount for you to pay but those schools probably will include loans in their offer. Your best bet is to run net price calculators for schools you are interested in. General rule of thumb is – more info required for school online npc, the more reliable.
But most likely ‘meet full need schools’ will base their aid not on FAFSA EFC alone, but on CSS profile or their own form as well.
Hey Eagles98. The EFC is a common spot of confusion especially for rising freshmen. It’s really common for students to get their EFC and it seems way higher than they expected. Finding out that your EFC is higher than you expected can be really, really stressful, but know that a lot of us have gone through it and we all turned out OK.