<p>sorry, I haven’t read through most of the posts, but I don’t consider myself lucky to have an EFC of 0. I’ve learned that if a school is not need-blind, it can and probably will take finances into account. If it’s between you, EFC-0 kid and a kid who can pay full price, you’re out. But interestingly, my friend’s mom, an admissions counselor at a popular school says some colleges want socioeconomic diversity so if you’ve got the goods (high GPA, SAT score), that’s a leg up. :] But otherwise, it sucks. I’m going to apply this year, and I pray to God I’m going to get enough FA.</p>
<p>If it’s between you, EFC-0 kid and a kid who can pay full price, you’re out.</p>
<p>I have seen this argument presented by many people but I don’t see how it holds any weight. Every school that I have spoken with has said that they do NOT take financial need into account AT ALL when reviewing the student’s application. </p>
<p>Plus, what if you don’t even fill out the FAFSA until after you are accepted? If you fill out early decision for all your colleges then you will generally know your acceptance months before the financial aid deadline even arrives. In many cases this is even true with normal decision if you don’t wait until the deadline. The school will not retroactively deny you once they find out you have low EFC. And if you are middle class you will probably have to take out loans for most or all of the amount. The difference is, when you can claim EFC 0 a sizable chunk of that WILL be filled with grant aid before you even have to turn to loans. Also, with most of the top and/or private schools, if you get accepted you don’t have to worry about the money and often with little to no loans.</p>
<p>My parents have a combined income of 50-60K, but I made $ 12,000 last year, will that hurt my EFC a lot?</p>
<p>For the 0809 FAFSA you have a protected income allowance of @$3080 (plus a little more in allowances for taxes). Your EFC will go up by 50% of anything over that protected income allowance. So say the total protected income amount including the tax allowances is $3500 (totally guesstimated figure) then your EFC would be increased by @ 4250 ([12,000 - 3500] x 50%)</p>
<p>Regarding Post # 162:</p>
<p>Colleges I applied to had no idea about my financial need when they offered
admissions. I was admitted EA to Caltech and MIT and RD to Duke, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.</p>
<p>the only two ways to have let colleges “flag” a person as a low income applicant would have been:
i. utilize the application fee waiver
ii. apply via questbridge</p>
<p>Additionally,
0 EFC doe not imply the same level of coverage from the different schools;
you can show each of them the others aid and have your grant
adjusted appropriately for the most part.</p>
<p>The apps I have seen ask if you are applying for financial aid. The kids I know who did not complete it were asked specifically by some colleges. There are colleges that do take need into consideration and openly say so, and some who do not say so, but will not say they are need blind. If you apply early and do not ask for financial aid, you may have a big problem if the package given to you is inadequate. Please do not equate the financial aid office with that of admissions. Completely different philosophy as many have learned who have tried to negotiate with them. If you were not upfront saying you needed aid, they have no qualms about treating you accordingly. Just because a school gives 100% of need does not mean it is all grants unless they say so, and your definition of need and theirs may not mesh. THis is not a safe game to play with colleges. Being upfront about needing FA is only beneficial to you more times than not.</p>
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<p>This is true because the vast majority of schools are not need blind, but need- aware/need senisitive. This is especially true toward the end of the admissions cycle if it is between you and an similiarly qualified student who will need less of the school’s resources. This student will be tipped in the admissions process and will receive an offer before you.</p>
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<p>As Cpt stated, this is a dangersous position to be in because monies are given on a first come/first served basis. Your not submitting your FA paperwork or submitting late can and will result in your receiving less $$ possibly more loans than if you had applied on time.</p>
<p>If you apply ED and don’t submit FA forms, the school will look at you as a full freight payer and you won’t be getting any aid from them. If you leave the question blank, they will write and ask you if you are applying for FA and please submit your paperwork.</p>
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<p>Most schools are not in a postion to do this so again applying late will keep you out of the $$. In applying to HEOP in NYS or EOP (nationally) programs there are limited funds so not applying on time will defintitely keep you out of the $$. In addition at some schools if you do not apply for FA freshman year you may not be eligible for FA in subsequent years (or you are the last in line to get FA).</p>
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<p>You are absolutely correct that the school will not deny you when you have a low EFC when it comes to federal $$- Pell/ stafford loans (SEOG funds are limited and once they are gone, they are gone). However, when it comes to distributing their own $$, again, only those with the deepest pockets are in a postion to grant $$ retroactively.</p>
<p>My EFC is 0. I will be attending a career college. Any thoughts on that? The fee for the program I am interested in is about $12,000.00.</p>
<p>shieldsa: In our household, we’d call that “wasting a perfectly EFC”, but that’s just me. 
If the college that you’re attending is a good choice for you, I think that’s fine. If you’re asking what sort of aid you’ll get, that will depend. My experience is that many career colleges don’t offer any other aid above Pell Grants and loans, so you may still have unmet need.</p>
<p>thanks for that TrinSF. I guess I will find out more when i meet with the school. I am a 34yr old mom of 2 teenagers and an 8 yr. who’s husband suffered a major heart attack last January. Options are slim :)</p>
<p>With an efc of zero you will be eligible for the below federal monies:</p>
<p>Up to maximum pell grant per year of $4731
source: [Federal</a> Pell Grant - apply for Pell Grant](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>What Is a Pell Grant? – BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>Up to a maximum of $5500 ($3500 subsidized, $2000 unsub)* in stafford loans for incoming dependant freshmen.</p>
<p>Or up to a maximum of $9500 ($3500 sub, $6000 unsub)* in stafford loans for incoming independant freshmen. (your case)</p>
<p>*The loan amount available to you increase every year.
Federal source: [Student</a> Aid on the Web](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp]Student”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp)
Source with nice current chart: [Stafford</a> Loan Chart](<a href=“http://www.saystudent.com/sf/loan_chart.html]Stafford”>Stafford Loan Chart)</p>
<p>This mean $14,231 will be available to you for your first year.
The pell goes up each year but as of right now, over the course of 4 years you will have $14,100 in pell available.
The available amounts in Stafford loans over the course of 4 years will be $45,000 (It caps at $57,500 to allow one extra year to finish)</p>
<p>You will only be able to receive money up to the cost of attendance estimated by the school.
For example, the COA of my big state school is $5300 per year. The pell almost covers it. As an independent senior i’m allowed to take out up to $12,500. Unless you want to be in huge debt, take out what you need.</p>
<p>The point of this is to illustrate what kind of options you REALLY have with an efc of zero. If you wanted to max out your loans and pell, you could attend a private university that costs ~$70,000. Or you could stick with the minimum and go to a state school for free.</p>
<p>Another thing I wanted to mention is that you can go to [::</a> College Planning Made Easy | Inside Source for College Admissions Requirements](<a href=“http://www.collegeboard.com%5D::”>http://www.collegeboard.com) and check out the aid that a school provides.</p>
<p>If you look at this link [College</a> Search - Stanford University - THE FARM - Cost & Financial Aid](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board) you will notice that stanford meets students aid need at 100% The annual cost of attendance is $36,000 and they give out an AVERAGE grant/scholarship to students in need of $28,000. With an EFC of ZERO they will pay for the majority of your education in grants. This makes a well endowed private school often cheaper, or even free, if an efc 0 student can get accepted.</p>
<p>Finally, when you are speaking of a career school, I envision an IT or Trade school like comptia or something. Be careful because I’ve seen these schools NOT offer government aid more regularly. If they do have a loan program, it’s often directly through them and is a terrible deal. So make sure you grill them about how their aid works and if they offer pell/stafford before you go.</p>
<p>Let me know if your fuzzy on any of this and I’ll do my best to clear it up, and good luck!</p>
<p>shieldsa,</p>
<p>Welcome to CC.</p>
<p>Instead of going to career college, have you considered attending a community college (the cost would be less expensive) . May offer either an AAS or AOS degree where you would still learn a skill and be marketable for a job.</p>
<p>What is your intended major at the career college?</p>
<p>Well, just to share here, my D was given a financial aid package from a state university and after all of the aid, our cost is $2750 a year. </p>
<p>This is NO LOANS! Praise the Lord! </p>
<p>The $2750 does not include the cost of books or spending money or travel home (it is not that far so this is not a huge chunk). </p>
<p>So, just to clarify, it IS possible to go to a state university, with a low EFC, for a very small cost. (we are in state of course.)</p>
<p>Carry on. To read CC sometimes, you would think that everyone has a 4.5 GPA, makes 120K a year, and cannot afford college.</p>
<p>I am a first year student at UC Santa Barbara with a 0 EFC. For this academic year, I loan $1400 and use no work study. I expect to order most of my course materials from Amazon instead of the bookstore to save money and I use about $600 for that. Cell phone expenses also factor into this.</p>
<p>Hope this helps anybody with a 0 EFC in terms of getting information for financial aid.</p>
<p>I am hoping for another year of 0 EFC.</p>
<p>Also, I loan $1400 instead of $3000+ like some other UCSB students with a 0 EFC because </p>
<ol>
<li><p>I order books online whenever possible.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t eat out.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Let me start by saying that I am part of the poor. My EFC has never been over 500…and I have never grossed more than $30k per year. There are 4 in my household and we live in a relatively inexpensive area in our state.</p>
<p>We struggle to make the bill payments every month, our car is from 1994 and falling apart. We rent in a semi-bad area of town. Our only bills, outside of my student loans which aren’t due yet, are typical household bills: rent, phone, DirecTV, internet, auto insurance, utilities, food, other necessities (shampoo, soap, etc). We don’t own a washer or dryer. I just got a cell phone (pre-paid) as my travel for work has started increasing. I have a teenager who enters college in 2 years, just as I get done with my next degree.</p>
<p>I would GLADLY take on a higher EFC to see more spendable income each month.</p>
<p>Having attended a school with a very good endowment, I can state that not everyone with a low or zero EFC finds attending college easy. I still needed to fund my education with mainly loans. While I did get a lot in Pell, it wasn’t sufficient. Those with zero or low EFC’s really need to explore their options. Some colleges will provide you with an excellent financial aid package…others will leave your family residing in a cardboard box (trying to afford the large loan payments). College is doable with a zero EFC if you do the research in advance. And never, ever count on getting into a school which guarantees to meet 100% of your need. As others have stated, getting in can be difficult unless you have amazing stats to go along with that low EFC. Always work with a net…a useful backup plan does wonders.</p>
<p>My backup plan was to get employment at an institution that provided free tuition benefits to dependents of employees. Now my teenage daughter will be able to pick from hundreds of potential schools and we will only have to deal with room, board, fees and books. This type of plan obviously won’t work for everyone…but the point is, a great backup plan always comes in handy!</p>
<p>Does anybody know if the amount of financial aid you receive is based on your EFC only or a combination of both your EFC and you adjusted gross income?</p>
<p>Let’s say student A has an EFC of 0 but an AGI of $14000.</p>
<p>Student B has an EFC of 0 but an AGI of $10000.</p>
<p>Who both students get the same level of financial aid assuming basic stuff like same college, same undergraduate level, same type of housing, etc.</p>
<p>Some federal aid is based on your EFC. Your AGI is used to determine (in part) your EFC. Colleges do not use your AGI to determine your eligibility for need-based federal aid. IOW, two students with an EFC of zero would be entitled to the same federal aid regardless of their AGI.</p>
<p>EFC of 873 here. Basically if i go to my state school, I got the scholarships and the grants to cover everything. If I get into one of the 100% coverage schools, I’m not paying anything . Life is good</p>
<p>Thanks nikkiil.</p>
<p>Also, can people who have a 0 EFC post their financial package and what college they go to to help future college students decide where to go? I already did mine.</p>