<p>I am curious what EFCs and college prices (after grants/scholarships are applied) are typical.</p>
<p>We had a 2007 agi of $91k and our EFC was $20k. Is this (relationship) typical? </p>
<p>I read in one of the USNR articles that I saw linked to in a FA CC thread the following…</p>
<p>“And then she discovered that Hal’s top choice, Swarthmore, would cost the family $16,000, or as much as 22 percent of the family’s after-tax income”</p>
<p>That got me thinking about our EFC and the typical costs we have been getting from colleges in our pkgs - before loans are applied (Aren’t loans basically simply a way to pay the price?)</p>
<p>L 27771
K 26733
I 25014</p>
<p>The middle one, K, is a whopping 29 pct of our <em>AGI</em> (not even after tax)!!!</p>
<p>even after loans, the ‘price’ is $20k, which is , hey, 22 pct of our gross - even worse than the cut from the article.</p>
<p>Is this scenario typical for middle class-ites - both in the EFC (what the gov says we <em>should be able to pay</em>), and for the prices that we have to end up paying?</p>
<p>the article was supposed to be about trying to get a lower price from the college, and this was an example. I already tried to get a reduced price for the one of those three, and they simply said they cannot give any more money to us.</p>
<p>In 2002, Our EFC was 90% of Gross, 125% of Net Income. This was 125% of COA. We are fortunate to have a dedicated “Higher Education Fund” so the EFC was meaningless and financial aid was not absolutely necessary. We still got unsubsidized and immediate interest loans plus a small merit aid grant. </p>
<p>Is OP’s “typical” --probably yes, but it only takes a few of our situation to say that college can be done with careful and long term planning; Even for a pricy college of national rankings.</p>
<p>so it is typical to have around 5k in assets, a 100k in home equity, 90k income, and a 20k EFC? that would over a quarter of what we live on - after the 5k is used up.</p>
<p>$90k income alone actually comes out to around 20,000 EFC using FAFSA (which does not use your home equity). So yes quite typical. The 5k assets will have little or no impact (as they are below the protected asset levels).</p>
<p>How do retirement assets figure in with FAFSA? I have a state retirement plan (takes about 6% of gross) and a work sponsored tax deferred IRA (takes 400.00 per month out of the paycheck). This creates about a 13K differences between the annual gross and what is figured into final adjusted gross income. Are retirement funds treated like home equity (ignored) in the EFC? Or do the get calculated back in and treated as any non-retirement asset the parents may have? I feel really foolish that I can’t answer this myself!</p>
<p>Oh-my thoughts with OP’s thread. Sorry for the hijack. Your EFC and % expected is roughly the same percentage of AGI as our our family would be expected to pay out (sigh).</p>