I ran the NPC for all of my schools, and each school was affordable with an expected EFC of 2500-5000. However when I actually filed the FAFSA, the EFC was 20000. My family cannot afford that as it is almost half of the total income.
These are the schools on my list:
University of Chicago
Reed College
New College of Florida
St. John’s College
Georgia Tech
University of North Georgia
Georgia Southern
Georgia College and State University
Thank you for your help.
An EFC of $20k on a $40k income makes no sense. Do your parents own a business? Are you sure the FAFSA EFC was $20k and not $2k? Did your confirmation page indicate that you were eligible for a Pell grant? If so, your FAFSA EFC would be less than ~$5k.
We don’t own a business nor do we have anything saved. The confirmation page did not indicate that I was eligible for a Pell grant.
If you really only have $40,000 in income…and no assets, you must have entered something incorrectly on the FAFSA.
When processed, print the thing out. Check EVERY entry. You might have out a decimal point in the wrong place…making something like $10,000 read as $100,000.
Or did you put parent income in the student section also?
I will check the FAFSA tonight to see if there were any errors. I didn’t put any parent income in the student section, but I will double check.
Look at the tax return again. What line is the $40k amount listed on? Is it adjusted gross income? Taxable income? Are there any subtractions in the section just above adjusted gross income?
@thumper1 @Madison85 @austinmshauri
Thank you so much for your help! I looked at the FAFSA again and saw that my parent’s financial information was entered also where the student’s information was supposed to go. The EFC is now much lower and in the range of the expected EFC when I ran the NPCs. Problem solved.
Thanks for letting us know. I’m glad you got it sorted out. 
Did you use the IRS data retrieval tool? It should bring the information over from the tax return for you.