Hello,
I have 1 in college and 1 senior applying to colleges.
I know it’s early in the game for the class of 2024 - however, son has already received some acceptances to public colleges.
All OOS.
It appears to me that - particularly public colleges - just ignore the EFC from the FAFSA.
Ours is 12000
Not a pick of financial aid has been offered.
My research from last year seems to indicate that it won’t matter if my EFC is near 0, some colleges - especially public - just plain ignore this.
Can anyone tell me what their experience has been with this issue?
Thanks
This is what you look at before the application process, OOS (the majority) publics won’t give you FA, why did you apply? Are you the adult or the child? How did it work out for the already in college student?
The FAFSA EFC is only relevant to determining eligibility for Pell Grants and federal student loans. Colleges provide Net Price Calculators to help you estimate the amount they’d expect you to pay.
The primary mission of public colleges and universities is to educate a given state’s residents. With few exceptions, there is no financial aid for those who fall outside that mission.
What’s more meaningful is what each college’s NPC calculates as COA. At the end of the day, colleges decide how much aid, if any, it will provide. Some colleges have a higher FA budget than others. There are very few public universities that provide meaningful FA to OOS applicants; their priority is to instate applicants (and their families) who pay taxes to partially fund these institutions.
The FAFSA Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is not, in fact, what a family is expected to pay at the vast majority of colleges in the Unites States. In other words, it doesn’t mean what most people think it means.
In the vast majority of cases, public universities first and foremost have an obligation to fund the students instate whose parents are taxpayers that support that state.
Applying to out of state public universities that don’t meet full need for all is a sure recipe for not receiving a lot of aid. Many of these schools do give aid to OOS students but don’t make up the differential between instate and out of state costs.
The exceptions are University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel Hill where full need is met but getting accepted as an OOS student is a challenge. Also, these schools use the CSS Profile to determine need based institutional aid.
There is only ONE college that guarantees to meet full need for all accepted students based solely on the FAFSA data…and that is University of Chicago.
You need to understand, the very vast majority of colleges, public and private, don’t guarantee to meet full need based on the FAFSA data.
Did you use the net price calculators on the college websites? If you are not divorced, don’t own a business, aren’t self employed and don’t own real estate other than your primary residence…the net price calculators will give you a far better estimate of your net costs than looking at the FAFSA EFC.
The majority of OOS public schools do not meet full need. I know of 3: UNC, UVA, U of Michigan (income needs to be below a certain amount for Michigan).
UNC is a profile school but meets full need based on the fafsa efc.
Most schools do not care what a student’s EFC is when deciding on admittance. They do care, in that a financial aid file is set up for those who file FAFSA. The FAFSA EFC is the first step in the financial aid process. It is what gives the student eligibility for federal, and other financial aid. That EFC is what indicates eligibility for PELL and other grants. It allows for student loans.
However, very few schools guarantee to meet need as defined by EFC. Even those schools that do guarantee to meet need almost always want additional information and have their own definitions of need. FAFSA opens up the eligibility for government funds, and then the rest is up to each college how to distribute its own money.
Most schools do not have funds available to meet full need for everyone, often not for most students.
The FAFSA EFC is usually the least amount a student can expect to pay unless schools with costs below that figure are in the picture or merit money is received.
I’m going to use the California system.
If your child is applying to the UC system or Cal States (public CA universities), upon searching the scholarship pages, the provided information indicates that the schools cannot fund non-residents:
Federal aid is basically: a Pell grant and sponsored loans.
The current maximum Pell Grant award is $6,195. (That’s less than 10% of the $65K annual fees).
Loans to freshman undergraduates max at $5500. Combined that’s less than $12K per year.
California publics offer some scholarships but they tend to run from $2K to $5K. Again, chump change.
That’s not enough to pay for one year of attendance ($40-65K per year).
Public universities don’t have a lot of dollars to begin with. Asking another state’s taxpayers to fund your child, when they have residents begging for limited funding just wouldn’t make sense.
Please use the NPC for each school where you/ your child applied.
It makes little sense for a public college to charge a higher OOS rate and THEN dig into their limited FA funds and hand out need based aid. If that were the case, they might as well not charge OOS rates.
Besides, you dont pay taxes in that state. The taxpayers in those states don’t want to be subsidizing your child’s college costs any more than you’d want to be subsidizing OOS students attending your state’s schools.
That said, a family’s low EFC does not magically cause a school to have a bigger FA treasure chest. Most colleges have little need-based aid to give other than the small amounts of fed aid.
FAFSA EFC is a federal number. The feds can’t insist that any college give their own funds away. The feds don’t own those schools.
Before applying to schools, run the Net Price Calculators so you’ll know whether it makes sense to apply to those particular schools.
Actually for merit aid, it is late in the game. I think you can apply to U Alabama’s generous scholarships until December, but Ohio State for example requires EA application by Nov 1 for merit consideration.
Where does your older son go to college, and is it affordable?
“The FAFSA EFC is only relevant to determining eligibility for Pell Grants and federal student loans. Colleges provide Net Price Calculators to help you estimate the amount they’d expect you to pay.”
Welcome to CC. This is something that comes up frequently. The term EFC is a misnomer. It is, as the above poster mentioned, a formula used by the federal government to determine federal FA aid in the form of Pell Grants, Stafford loans and Work Study money. The federal government is not in any way involved in what the university charges or the financial aid and scholarships they may offer you. The confusion is understandable given the terminology. OOS schools can be very expensive. As others have mentioned their primary obligation is to serve the students of their state. The final FA packages often don’t come in until later in March. In my opinion the best way to handle this is to know what you are willing to contribute and when you get the package if the net cost is higher than that then the school won’t be considered. Good luck.
This caught my (newbie!) eye. I am divorced. What do I need to know about the NPC that will help me ensure an accurate estimate spits out? I have NO idea whether S21’s father will contribute anything to his education; I do know that he is a VP and probably brings in well over 250k/year, plus his wife is a nurse so their income is probably north of the mid-300s…Meanwhile I’m a Southern California single mom in that unhappy financial space between being poor enough to qualify for aid and wealthy enough to write a check for more than about $10k/year (and my company is a startup with high risk of going under if our funding isn’t renewed so I really want to put that $10/year into my rainy day fund instead).
We are crossing our fingers for NMF as his SAT was 1560 so odds are high his PSAT SI will hit the mark (and I’m making him look at Florida schools for that reason, LOL). Just starting to do my homework, just found CC, bless you all!
Agree with points made above, however, is it possible that FA just hasn’t been awarded yet at some of the schools? I remember being surprised that scholarship notifications often came weeks/months after the acceptance notification at OOS publics for my DS. Have you contacted the schools to ask?
For FAFSA purposes, your custodial parent information is all that will be required (you will need to include any spousal or child support received). But except for University of Chicago, the colleges that use only the FAFSA will require additional financial information usually via the CSS Profile, but sometimes with their own forms. Some of these include non-custodial parent and spouse information.
If a net price calculator specifically asks for marital status, and asks for non-custodial parent info If the college requires it…then it might be a decent estimate of your net cost.
BUT many NPCs don’t ask for marital status of parents or non-custodial parent income and assets. If a school requires the Profile, and requires the non-custodial parent Profile, then info from both bio parents…and any spouses will be required. Just FYI.
If the college does not require non-custodial parent finances, use the NPC with the custodial parent finances only. This should be reasonably accurate, if you are the custodial parent and have reasonable financial records. Note: since you are in California, note that UCs and CSUs do not require non-custodial parent finances.
If the college does require non-custodial parent finances, both parents need to be fully cooperative in giving their financial information to the NPC and the actual financial aid forms. Non-cooperation by one or both parents may disqualify the student from need-based aid at that college. Incomplete cooperation may make it difficult to get accurate numbers to put into the NPC, resulting in the NPC result being as inaccurate as the NPC inputs.