<p>(1) My family’s total EFC is $25,000
(2) My older brother is going to Williams College
(3) Hendrix will cost my family $19,000 for me to attend next year.
(C) What on earth?</p>
<p>Not enough information to answer your questions…what do you want to know??</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>Why on earth will Hendrix cost nearly 20K if our EFC is $25,000 and my brother is going to Williams?</p>
<p>Williams meets 100% of need. Does Hendrix? If not…that is your reason.</p>
<p>I’m still confused.</p>
<p>Our total EFC is $25,000</p>
<p>If we have to pay $19,000 to Hendrix, then this means that we only have to pay $6,000 to Williams, given that they meet 100% of aid?</p>
<p>The EFC is not all your family is expected to pay. It is just number the schools can use to see what federal aid you are eligible for. from [Expected</a> Family Contribution (EFC)](<a href=“http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/fotw0910/help/fftoc01g.htm]Expected”>http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/fotw0910/help/fftoc01g.htm)</p>
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<p>With an EFC of 12,500 (assuming your brothers and yours are the same with no difference for student income or assets) you would not be eligible for any federal grants but may be eligible for federal student loans and/or WS. Federal aid is generally not sufficient to pay for most schools, even 4 year State Us. It is set to cover the cheapest option. Most schools do not promise to meed full need and, of those that do, very few promise to meet it without loans. It sounds like Hendrix does not meet full need.</p>
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No. Each school will look at the individual student’s EFC and calculate their own aid package. If your brother’s EFC is 12,500 then that is what Williams will use to calculate his aid package. They are looking at his need, not yours.</p>
<p>So we will have to pay $13,000 for Williams and $20,000 for Hendrix?</p>
<p>…Gross. I’m not going to college.</p>
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<p>Have you gotten your financial aid package from Hendrix already?</p>
<p>For schools like Williams, there is a guarantee to meet 100% of need BEYOND the EFC. Most of these schools also require a student contribution.</p>
<p>I have no idea what Hendrix financial aid policies are but if they do not meet full need (seems like they do not)…your EFC would be the minimum amount your family would be paying. Schools that do not meet full need typcially “gap” students…in other words, the cost of attendance minus EFC minus need based aid does NOT cover the full costs of attendance. The student and family must make up the difference. </p>
<p>Re: Your comment “gross I’m not going to college”…that would be your decision. There are many colleges with costs of attendance that are LESS than that of Hendrix. You could go to a local college (if there is one) and save money by living at home. You could attend an instate public university where the costs are significantly less than a private school. </p>
<p>I don’t know if you applied to schools where you might be awarded merit aid or not…but that would also have been an option.</p>
<p>The best way to craft a college list is to have choices that have different admittance criteria AND where you have at least one financial safety school.</p>
<p>I know my kids have two options: Either they have to go to an extremely generous, well-endowed college or they have to go a state school and live at home.</p>
<p>I have one currently in each of those options. If the one going to the state school wanted to go to Hendrix, she wouldn’t be able to.</p>
<p>Still, I don’t think this necessarily leads to the conclusion that Life’s A B*tch. What it does mean is you can’t always get what you want. But when has that ever been the case? Time to let it go. You’re wasting good energy on this.</p>
<p>"You could go to a local college (if there is one) and save money by living at home. You could attend an instate public university where the costs are significantly less than a private school.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you applied to schools where you might be awarded merit aid or not…but that would also have been an option."</p>
<p>I’d rather not go to college than go to a local ‘university’. </p>
<p>Hendrix costs roughly $38,000…they gave me $12,000 in merit aid, and only $2,500 of non-merit aid. The rest are loans, which means it’s not actually aid at all.</p>
<p>“Still, I don’t think this necessarily leads to the conclusion that Life’s A B*tch. What it does mean is you can’t always get what you want. But when has that ever been the case? Time to let it go. You’re wasting good energy on this.”</p>
<p>I don’t want to go to college for the degree. I want to go to college for an education.</p>
<p>I refuse to go to my horribly crappy local state school. I’ll work in a used bookstore my entire life, it’s all fine, really.</p>
<p>Well, refusal to go is certainly your right. Good luck however things turn out.</p>
<p>Remember, though, that education happens from the inside out.</p>
<p>Williams uses CSS Profile and Hendrix uses FAFSA. More than likely you would get different EFC values from these two methods. I don’t know which method gave you $25K. In addition, the two methodologies treat two kids in college differently. Profile expects 60% of EFC while FAFSA expects 50%.</p>
<p>Also, Hendrix does not meet 100% of need. According to collegeboard Hendrix meets 87% on average.</p>
<p>When you do the FAFSA, your EFC is based on whether there are other kids in college. As far as I can tell, when I filled out the two different FAFSA’s for my two daughters, each got their own EFC number, so it’s what is calculated that we can contribute for the kid the FAFSA is for, i.e. the $25K is what they calculate you/your family can contribute for the college year. This is not to say that EFC is necessarily realistic (see any of a billion posts about this here on CC), but that’s how they calculate it. Good luck!</p>
<p>It is confusing. Your EFC is really just a number that FAFSA generates. It is used for eligibility for government money. Since you are not PELL grant eligible, the only other thing that the EFC does is guarantee your eligibility for Stafford loans. The rest all depends on the colleges.</p>
<p>As others have noted, Williams uses PROFILE. The number that is generated from that application will be what Williams uses to give your brother his financial aid package.</p>
<p>Hendrix uses FAFSA only, it seems. It will then put together a financial aid package based on what they have and want to give you. Unless they guarantee to meet full need, which I don’t think they do, the amounts in the package can be anything, not necessarily related to EFC at all.</p>
<p>You say your family’s TOTAL EFC is $25k. How do you know that? Hendrix is FAFSA, Williams is Profile … you really don’t know your family’s EFC unless Williams gave you the EFC they computed for you. If you are saying that you took your FAFSA Student Aid Report and your brother’s FAFSA SAR and added them together & got $25k, then okay … but that really isn’t relevant. FOR YOU, Hendrix will look at YOUR EFC. That is NOT the family’s EFC … it is YOUR EFC … that is roughly 1/2 the family EFC with 2 in college (although your personal financial info may be different from your brother’s & thus will result in a different EFC). </p>
<p>Hendrix will take its COA - your EFC to figure out your need. They will attempt to meet your need with a combination of grants, loans, and work study. They don’t promise to fully meet your need.</p>
<p>Just received our outline of financial aid letter from Hendrix after submitting fafsa. No “EFC” number appeared in the letter, but we were offered eligibility for a Stafford Loan of $3500. (We had already received a substantial merit aid scholarship prior to submitting fafsa.) Then they gave us our bottom-line price: I wonder if that “contribution to direct charges” figure INCLUDES the Stafford Loan or not?</p>
<p>Also FYI, it’s not bad for a private LAC: @ $17k out the door all-inclusive.</p>