Does high % of income deferral effect EFC under CSS/ PROFILE

twoinanddone
Sat, 10 Nov 2018 01:02:48 +0000

I really don’t think FAOs spend that much time looking at every entry. You enter your info, the FAFSA spits out an EFC - whether you’ve saved any of it in 401k or HSA, they expect you to pay that EFC (or a lot more).

On the CSS, they see your income, they see the total in 401k accounts, but they don’t know if you put that all in a year ago or 15 years ago. Yes, they could do the math on every single entry, but most schools are processing thousands of CSS forms every year so use a formula. If the numbers add up, they move to the next file. I think your kids will get the same FA as other kids whose families make about $100k, except that amount paid in taxes does play a part in the formula so you won’t get as much ‘credit’ for taxes paid (because you didn’t pay them).