@ColoradoCPA - I’ve been reading these forums and posts for 5 years or so now, and trust me, I’ve thought of so many ideas, and read about so many posts on how to lower the EFC; but it’s very very very hard unless you just cut your income. Pretty much any loophole has been closed. AND - a lower EFC really means nothing if you are at 95% of the colleges in the US. There’s really only a handful of colleges that will give grants to cover the costs of colleges minus your EFC. But I’ll keep reading; maybe you or someone else will come up with a legal idea to get more financial aid that works!