Keep in mind that EFC is an indicator of relative financial strength. It’s not what parents are expected to pay … in fact, it’s typically less than what parents will need to pay to send their kid to school. For more well off families, there will be schools that cost less than the EFC. For the majority of families, though, even a state directional school will cost more than the EFC. What this means is that the EFC calculation is not the problem. The problem is that college is expensive, and financial aid doesn’t cover enough of the cost for many families to make it possible to attend.
There are a lot of families on CC that can and do pay for school without borrowing. However, as a former financial aid professional, I can tell you that the percentage of parents who are in such a position is actually very small. I definitely saw families that spent a LOT on travel sports, dance teams and the like over the years, and they often did it instead of saving for college. But the vast majority of families I saw had low EFC but the difference between Cost of Attendance and EFC was large. If you think that it’s tough to afford school when you receive aid that bridges the gap between COA and EFC, just imagine how tough it is when the gap doesn’t even come close to being bridged.