EFC not really an "expected" amount

dancersmom · January 27, 2005, 9:47pm

Maybe I’m misreading things, but it seems that many posters are under the impression that EFC is what they’ll actually be paying at any school at which their child enrolls. If only it were true. My family’s EFC was a rather low $6500 this past year. That’s higher than the estimates we came up with from books we read and workshops we attended. But, the number hasn’t made much of a difference in what we have to pay. At my D’s school she received about $5000 in scholarships and grants. She received the school’s top academic scholarship, a talent scholarship, and the largest grant (which was entirely based on income) that the school awards. We did not qualify for a Pell grant, probably because my D’s summer income was fairly large in 2003. (Our income was about $36,000.) After scholarships and grants, we are still left with a $21,000 bill. I am thankful that we will finish the school year with all the bills paid with the exception of my D’s Stafford loan. She is not attending an ivy league school. Instead, she’s one of the musical theatre kids who was fortunate enough to get accepted into a top program. I count my lucky stars that she got accepted to a school that we could afford. Maybe someone up there is smiling on us.

Jamimom, I can truly relate to your living situation (with the big exception of having 9 kids:)). I certainly feel no sense of entitlement because my husband and I chose lower income professions. My husband was a public school music teacher in a state that has traditionally had low teacher salaries. He’s now retired and is unable to work because of health problems. I stepped off the college teaching track 24 years ago in part because of financial reasons and in part to be a fulltime mom. I’ve worked as a private music teacher for 20+ years, unfortunately, in an area where private teacher fees are not so good. Please don’t think I’m complaining. We chose this life style. I actually have felt guilty at times - mostly when younger D was auditioning for college last year - because our income would limit what we could provide for our 2 kids.

We live in a very small house in a not so great neighborhood, but it’s paid for. Our cars are ancient. The girls never wore expensive clothes. My Ds’ educational needs always were a high priority. We didn’t have much saved because we were busy trying to make ends meet and give our girls the extracurricular extras we wanted them to have. Older D had private music lessons and dance classes. Most of her H.S. activities were through her school - marching band and speech and drama. Younger D was the one that forced me to get creative in finding ways to afford the arts training she needed. We recognized when she was still in elementary school that she was very gifted artistically. As the years passed, more and more arts classes got added to her schedule and the bills naturally got larger. She did not fully realize until she got to H.S. that the kids who were in her theatre and dance classes had a lot more money than us. Kids in a 2 year intensive drama program she enrolled in had frequent parties. She’d come home from the parties regaling us with tales of the mansions the other kids lived in. It finally sunk in that most families in our income bracket did not provide the kinds of opportunites she was being given. To pay for her classes, I bartered my piano playing skills, and D assisted some of her acting and dance teachers. Some things still had to be paid for out of pocket, like voice lessons and tuition to the arts H.S. she attended. Our motto became, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I realize that not every family is able or willing to provide these sorts of extras. Often though, it’s a matter of priorities.

It’s too bad that kids’ opportunites are sometimes limited by their parents’ decisions. I’m just glad that at least at my house, my D is able to attend a school that will give her the training she needs and that we will be able to pay for it. I truly feel sorry for kids whose parents have a high income who won’t help them get the best education possible.

jamimom · January 27, 2005, 10:30pm

You are absolutely right that the EFC figure is often just a number FAFSA provides. All it guarantees is eligibility for government funds with certain income threshholds. Your EFC is too high for the Pell GRant. There are really only a few occaisions that the aid package is going to bring the true family contribution to the EFC level.

Congratulations to your daughter in getting into one of those super competitive programs! It looks like all that encouragement went a long way. I wish the school could have met your need, and it is a shame that it could not. This is something kids, and families do not understand, that just cuz you need it and FAFSA agrees, does not mean the money will come through. S has friends at Michigan and NYU who are really struggling to get that tuition paid. The one young man at NYU is probably going to have to take this semester off since the parents just cannot come up with the money. They were counting on financial aid that did not come through, and they just cannot take out the loans. Grandpa hinted of helping out, but when he heard, the amounts, that was the end of that.

We lived in the student ghetto for years around other college post grads and student, so there were many folks like us. Low on the money, high on the culture and education. It really was no big deal until we put our kids into private schools when we realized that the public school was not working out. That was the real killer. We had a bit more money than a lot of families we knew because I always brought in extra, and H also always got some windfalls through consulting assignments. It just was never enough. The older ones understood our situation, and are careul with money; the younger ones have been raised as affluent suburban kids with no expense spared except through our inherent quirkiness. I still do not shop much, and not the expensive shops when I do, very functional, so no designer stuff, and I am just not with it on material things so we are always behind on the new stuff. The kids don’t seem to care and do not ask for the stuff anyways.

We always gave all of our kids music lessons, and I can tell you that I really owe the music teachers of many cities so much for giving us discounted prices when so many of them were stretched themselves. They could just see in in my face that I could not pay as many of the other families could. I had one teacher much in demand who truly needed the money too much to take us as students, but she would always call if she had a cancellation, and give my son a master lesson, something that gave him a boost. Their music training was pretty patchwork as I went from teacher to teacher , program to program as I could afford it and as opportunities arose. My son who is very interested in voice and theatre, and was auditioning for these programs never was in those expensive youth programs those days even as he so wanted them. We had to go for the freebies and cheapies. And the summer programs, too were out of the question, the ones with all the bells and whistles. It was not until he was in his teens that we could pay for the comprehensive programs, and when he went to high school, that ended. But he has found a lot of opportunities in theatre that just do not involve a lot of money. The younger ones are not as intrepid, as they have not had to be. But there are cluster of families that have put their money into educational and cultural training and opportunities for their children, and just are not wealthy. We always sought those cluster finding them in university neighborhoods in Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh.

dancersmom · January 27, 2005, 11:49pm

Jamimom,

I truly feel lucky that we were able to find a way to pay for the activities younger D participated in. We would have been hard pressed to do it had she been our number one child. Income was lower and expenses higher. There were, of course, limits to what we could do for younger D. The super expensive summer programs that many on the MT thread talk about were just out of the question. However, I don’t think D really needed them. Her year-round training at home was excellent. Besides, she got to be a paid performer most summers instead of paying to do a high profile summer program.

I do feel a bit of envy regarding your finding clusters of non-wealthy families who put their money into educational and cultural opportunites. We were always the poor kids on the block. Most of the parents of the other kids in my D’s arts classes were doctors and lawyers. It seemed that the only people in our income bracket were her arts teachers:) It was in fact the teachers that arranged our “play and assist” deal. One of her private teachers last year has some serious long term health issues and was financially struggling. I felt embarassed to be paying him as little as he asked for lessons. We paid the same fee as all his other students, but I felt that he was drastically undercharging. I was actually happy when he announced 3 months after D started studying with him that he was raising his fee by $5.00 a week.

Like I said in my earlier post, I’m just glad my D got accepted to FSU. It was 1st choice for my H and I. Some schools would have been a very tough financial stretch. As you know, kids in the arts face an uncertain employment future. We feel that it would be wrong to saddle our D with huge student loans. She will probably graduate with some Stafford loans, but her dad and I expect to help pay them off if she is not in a position to do so. At the same time, we feel very uncomfortable with the idea of taking on huge debt ourselves, since we don’t know if H will be able to work again. We’re hoping we’ll be able to continue paying as D goes. For us, FSU’s costs will probably be manageable. The schools that come in at the $40,000 mark would have been very difficult. D’s biggest fear last year was that she’d get into a school she loved then have to turn it down because we just couldn’t afford it. We shouted hallelujah when the call from Florida State came.

I’ve neglected to say congratulations on your son’s acceptance. I know you are deservedly proud. Tell him to break a leg at his Juilliard audition. What will he do if he gets accepted?

tsdad · January 28, 2005, 8:37am

Newmassdad:

DOE is the Department of Energy. ED is the Department of Education.

momofthree · January 28, 2005, 9:10am

jmmom,

Thanks for your concern, but I realized after your post that my username is a little misleading in this thread. I have two biological children. When my D was in college, I could claim only one child: my ex-husband and I have joint custody, he claimed one, I the other. Then, when I remarried, I gained the third kid. So, in light of having only one dependent to claim at that time, the FAFSA EFC was about $3100.

texdad · January 28, 2005, 9:25am

Dancersmom, your thinking sounds very “sound” to me. The Wall Street Journal had a good article about how unbelievably aggressive the Feds are in collecting student loans. Their private debt collectors have access to tools most collectors don’t. I personally saw a case recently where a 67 year was having 15% of his social security check withheld to pay for an ancient student loan for a drug addict daughter that he hasn’t seen or spoken to in years.

In November I spent several days in Tallahassee working as a volunteer legal observer for the Kerry campaign in the outlying counties where thousands of AFrican American ballots were not allowed in 2000… I was quite impressed by both the university and the town. Good racial diversity with FAMU adjacent to the FSU campus. Congratulations. Good economic diversity, of course, as is true with any good state school. Looked like a great college town. Almost enough to consider sending ds there instead of UT Austin and I had practically never heard of Tallahassee before.

EFC not really an "expected" amount

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