I do think late this year is different. There’s a good chance packages could change this year. In the past you’d likely have a sense, right? But the new formula is going to switch it up for some.
We never had a sense at all. Our finances changed annually. One kid graduated from college. And the colleges never updated their cost of attendance until summer either.
We did the monthly payment plan and we guessed every.single.year. Those typically started July 1…
Agreed it came late before too - but I feel like we could predict with relative certainty. Feel like it’s up in the air now. Losing the multiple kid discount will hurt too. Maybe it’s just us though.
But how do you know that your college will not take multiples into consideration?
As I understand it they can only do so case by case, through the professional judgment process.
I hope @kelsmom chimes in, but I believe schools can do whatever they choose if they are ONLY awarding their own institutional monies.
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Comparing this to the Draft put out in November 2022
and from a brief check so far, I see that various numbers in tables have been increased by 18.3% (the inflation adjustment from April 2020 to April 2023 that has been widely discussed) for example “Table A2: Income Protection Allowance” and “Table A5: Parents’ Contribution from Adjusted Available Income” have such an increase, which will result in a decrease in calculated SAI.
By the way, when we submitted FAFSA a few weeks ago, an email immediately said an “Estimated Student Aid Index (SAI)” and this exactly matched the SAI I calculated using the Draft form. I am certain the updated form will again give the correct SAI that incorporates the required inflation adjustments.
If one really wants to know their exact SAI (and Pell if applicable) they can trace through the new form and do the calculation. It is a public objective formula. It is not mysterious, nor is it particularly complicated. You do not have to wait to find these numbers. (There are still other unknowns. SEOG is not certain. Timelines are very uncertain. Each CSS school’s CSS formula is not public, though CB NPCs give some idea.)
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Schools can do whatever they want with their own money. They have to follow federal guidelines when awarding federal aid, but they know how to award using the institutional methodology (CSS) while accounting for the federal methodology (FAFSA).
Schools can account for multiples for federal aid purposes by making certain allowable adjustments, but it’s specifically not considered professional judgment (although for the layman, it doesn’t matter what they call it as long as they consider it).
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We completed the FAFSA today and it still says they will share the FAFSA information starting in late January. Odd that it isn’t updated.
Federal Student Aid has not been timely in updating communications - and based on some information shared here, some schools are a bit behind, too.
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We found the SAI email. But what does that number mean? It says it isn’t a dollar amount. Last year the number it spit out, whatever they called it, ended up being almost exactly what our offers from meets need schools said our share would be. If that were true with this years number it would be 10k less…. Is that number a dollar amount or some meaningless random number?
SAI is definitely a dollar amount, even if the email omitted the “$” symbol. SAI is the new name for EFC, and they changed the name because they didn’t want people taking it literally, but i think it is reasonable to think of SAI as “kinda sorta expected family contribution, or at least it would be if we actually met full need”. The CSS schools still use the term EFC, and for the genuine “meet full need (as they define it)” schools, EFC is indeed what the family will need to come up with through savings/work/loans.
ETA: As noted in a reply, FAFSA-SAI (previously FAFSA-EFC), is a separate number to each CSS school’s separately calculated CSS-EFC number.
Right, but the meet full need schools use CSS Profile and calculate EFC based on their own formula using the info from CSS. They are not using FAFSA SAI to inform their calculation.
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I agree it is most definitely a dollar figure - but one not to be used in any exact fashion. One of my pet peeves are folks insisting the SAI has nothing to do with dollars. If one goes to the paper version and works it out by hand (which isn’t particularly hard at all), the end result clearly indicates that it is a monetary number, which, of course, should be as you are plugging in monetary amounts into the formula.
This is one of those situations where the message is the SAI is not a dollar number, so families don’t bank on the number being what they pay out of pocket, but the result of trying to give that message adds another layer of confusion to families.
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The point of the change was to try to dispel the myth that the number generated is the number families are expected to pay for college. Those of us who have worked in financial aid, as well as those of us who have been helping folks on CC for a long time, have seen people who misunderstand the number. Some who get a huge number will think that they will be expected to pay that amount for college … when in reality, there are so many colleges that cost less than that number. Others who get a low number assume that they will be expected to pay that amount for college … when in reality, at most schools, that number has absolutely nothing to do with how much the family will have to pay because the school is unable to offer enough aid (in other words, they will have to pay more than that number).
It has always been two things: 1) A number used to determine eligibility for a Pell Grant, and 2) a number used to determine eligibility for need based aid that is part of the determination, with the understanding that there is no guarantee that the need that is determined will be fully met with aid. Communicating that to the masses is difficult, especially because too many people seem to tune out the reality of financial aid, which is that it rarely feels like it’s enough.
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Last year, the number was pretty right on with how much her meets need school said we could pay and they gave us FA for the rest. This year’s number is 10k less. Which I find weird and now wonder if I messed something up. I did accidentally put my other child’s 529 down as our asset (there was no mention not to), so it may go down more. It makes no sense.
There were a number of changes this year in how the number is calculated. For example, there were changes to which funds you contributed to retirement accounts during the year count and which used to but no longer do. An income protection allowance was added back in this year. Etc. (For those with 2 or 3 in college both last year and this year, the SAI is likely going to be higher than the EFC was, but you are likely seeing the benefit of those other changes with only 1 in college both years).
Ours was significantly less also - and with lopsided assets for S22 vs. S24 both were identical to the penny. So clearly, something is amiss.
S24 is going to a CSS school that gave us the cost in early December, so his won’t change. I am slightly hoping that S22, who goes to a FAFSA (but does not meet need) school, may have another 1k thrown his way as a housing grant. He gets a whooping 1K right now as a housing grant.
Along those lines, every year, many are upset when they find out that schools do not meet their needs and receive little to no institutional grant/aid monies. Now, I suppose they will be angrier in April and somehow blame it on the revised FAFSA system when in reality they wouldn’t have received aid last year.
Another change this year are pre tax contributions to employer sponsered 401K and FSA/HSA plans are NOT added back in. The interesting thing is (and we discussed this early in the thread) that self-employed contributions to retirement plans are added back in.
So employed persons definitely get a break over self-employed in this instance.
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Every year, I see people who had a 90,000 EFC ask if they have to pay that amount per year to a college that only costs $50,000. So right, people don’t need to think they need to pay double tuition to a particular college. And I recognize the need to make things easier for the masses to understand, although whether that is actually happening is another thing. But to be fair, most families now just want to see a finalized SAI regardless of what the number will be.