Financial Aid for Internationals

Fin-IB
Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:02:39 +0000

Does anyone happen to know whether colleges take into account the price level of an applicant’s home country when determining the EFC?

My problem is that my parents make around $160k if simply converted from Euro to USD. This probably would mean that I would not qualify for much aid, but the general price level here (Finland) is a lot higher. Gasoline is around $9-10/gallon and in general everything costs a lot more here. The taxation (VAT and income tax) is also considerably heavier than in the US. Will these factors be taken into account when determining the EFC, or will they simply look at all our assets and income and then convert them into dollars according to the present currency rate?

I acknowledge that individual schools have differences in their FA policies, but I’m trying to get some sort of a general picture of how it works for us internationals.