<p>Mine is 80k :(. Gay</p>
<p>you must be doing pretty well- congratulations :)</p>
<p>BTW
gay is used to describe your sexual orientation or how your great aunt feels after 3 glasses of sherry- not the way you describe your negative feelings upon learning that the # your family is expected to pay for school is roughly double the average national income</p>
<p>there is no way i can afford to pay for a school that costs 45,000 a year with the amount my parents make. FAFSA does not include the debt we have. If my parents make 1XX,XXX a year, but still owe XXX,XXX on a house whereas someone who’s parents makes 7X,XXX a year, but have no mortage to pay, the 7x,xxx a year will have an easier time.</p>
<p>this is true FAFSA does not allow for debt- if you have a great deal of debt for expenses other than car/house/charge cards- such as paying for a relatives medical care- etc, schools may take that expense into account.
The EFC is not the amount that you can easily pay, especially if you are paying a large amount of income for housing and transportation.
Many families have to borrow to meet EFC, and those are families with less than 6 figure incomes.
Luckily, there are many schools that are very affordable. While you may not choose to be full pay at the most expensive schools in the country, especially without chance of merit aid, there are other private schools that are less expensive as well as some very good instate and out of state programs.</p>
<p>Your parents chose to live in an expensive house and have a XXX,XXX mortgage. choices were made and now have to be lived with, sorry–but that is the way it is in the US right now. Really harsh, since it is your parents making the decisions and you who are effected, but…</p>
<p>On the other hand, it sounds like your parents were probably able to provide you with a good life the first 18 years with a stable and nice place to live and that is alot more than many can say.</p>
<p>Even if a family does not pay mortgage, they still pay RENT. Same thing.</p>
<p>i hope mine’s 0…</p>
<p>lala, I read that and think he meant they paid off their home. :)</p>
<p>40k, i am helllla scared now. this was really a slap in the face of reality.</p>
<p>just to give some of you an idea of how tough the qualifications are:</p>
<p>I am an adult returning student with two children (one in college part time), married. No assets or savings of any kind (less than $200 in the bank). Adjusted Gross Income of $26,825. My EFC was $425. Doesn’t sound like much of an EFC, but still will be work for us to scrape it together. And it will always end up costing up more than that because we won’t take out any loans (no way to pay them back in the near future).</p>
<p>Soooo-- even with that low of an income and dependents and no assets, I still am expected to contribute to my educational expenses.</p>
<p>i’m sorry to hear that hsmomstef. I realize that there are people that can’t afford to pay 425 dollars just as much as i can’t be able to pay 425 x 100. My point is, these people get billions of dollars in endowments. We spent a billion dollars on each stealth plane, and we can’t get some more money?</p>
<p>btw, lamomma, i was talking about people who don’t have mortgages.</p>
<p>baklava – that is ok, I am determined to make it through school this time and as an adult, i truly appreciate the opportunity. </p>
<p>i just thought it might help some others to realize how hard it is to get a low EFC. You hear alot of talk about financial aid, but if you don’t actually realize the numbers until late in the game, it may really effect whether you can actually attend the schools you get into.</p>
<p>My son is interested in a highly competitive (expensive) school for college. By then I should be working (as a teacher --graduating in 3 years) and my hubby should be making more money. To get an idea, i ran the EFC calculator with a guesstimate of those figures and come up with and EFC of ~$11,000 for him. That is good to know now, way ahead of time – i can plan on it and then some and be prepared for it.</p>
<p>Baklava, </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your parents made choices for how to spend their income. Why should other people’s parents have to pay for those choices? Why do you deserve aid over other families who have much much lower incomes?</p>
<p>Also the idea of what a college thinks you can pay versus what your family thinks you can pay are vastly different.</p>
<p>i sorta know what baklava is talking about. my parents make alot of money and the only way to ensure that the government does not take a huge chunk of it via taxes, was to purchase a pretty expensive house. of course, fafsa doesn’t account for this, so my efc will prolly be damn high. </p>
<p>and i know everyone can say it was my parents decision to buy the house, but the choice comes down to investing the money in a house that can be sold later on or losing the money to the government.</p>
<p>My parents have done that as well. We especially had to do it because we have an income in the US and one in Germany, so we get double taxed. That was also a choice. My parents made that choice and accepted years ago that they would be paying fully for my college tuition and for my brothers’. </p>
<p>Still, with high incomes I don’t think any of us really deserve large amounts of aid and we shouldn’t pretend like we do.</p>
<p>i think it depends on the situation of each person individually. i mean a person’s family can have a high income but can be putting other children through college (as my parents are doing) and their could be other factors. And i don’t think any high income person thinks they deserve “large amounts of aid.” They prolly think that they deserve some type of aid.</p>
<p>could parents not put that money in a fund of some kind that protects it from tax and can be used to pay for college? I am not sure, since I am not in that situation, but I thought that you could.</p>
<p>Parents could choose to save the money in a college fund instead of buying a really expensive house. I know that the college fund has to be paid down before you qualify for aid, but it seems like in the case of high incomes, that is a moot point.</p>
<p>Well it also depends on how you define high income. I would define it as 250k+. With that you can afford university. </p>
<p>Lots of families are putting kids through school. My parents have put 2 kids through college already, 1 through graduate school and all through 14 years of private school. </p>
<p>I don’t think I deserve any kind of aid. Thats why I didn’t even apply. </p>
<p>You can look at a million factors, but everyone has factors that could somehow rectify what they are spending. But at least with your parents at a certain income level you can afford it. Imagine how many people cannot.</p>
<p>250K!!! wow, i’m not sure everyone can afford university with only 250K a year (assuming that parents are paying full tuition for other children and the family receives no aid) with multiple children in the ivies.</p>
<p>I’m sure it depends on the number of other children in college, FAFSA takes that into account. </p>
<p>If only 1 child is in college full tuition with 250k should be almost no problem. But with this income FA is very unlikely, or at least a significant amount.</p>
<p>There is really no point in arguing about this. But with an income of 250k that provides much more opportunities than one of 80k. Seriously if your parents make that much you should be happy with what you have.</p>