<p>I am no expert, but I think your EFC will be divided into thirds for next year. You are lucky to have 3 in at the same time!! We planned poorly and will not have our kids in college at the same time.</p>
<p>We live in the northeast so I know what you are talking about regarding cost of living. We cannot move though, so we are stuck dealing with it. So many criteria are used in determining efc and I don’t know why area of the country is not one of them. People say where you live is a matter of choice, but for us it truly is not.</p>
<p>The income protection allowance for FAFSA is based on the number of Family Members, and the number in college. The allowance goes up about $3,300 for additional family members, but oddly it goes down about $2,300 for each additional kid in college.</p>
<p>The income protection allowance differences aren’t likely to have a large impact on EFC for most families, though-- it impacts the margins. The real impact of the EFC on multiple college kids is a final calculation-- after the EFC is calculated, it’s divided by the number of household members in college (on at least a half-time basis). So your EFC should be about a third of what it would be if you only had one in college.</p>
<p>The Institutional Methodology is slightly different-- EFC is multiplied by .60 of you have two in college, and by .45 if you have three in college.</p>
<p>I’d double check your numbers on the FAFSA. Or try using the FinAid calculator and change the number in college from 1 to 3 and see how it changes, and which matches your SAR EFC.</p>
<p>income protection also goes up for number of adults working- for example a two income household will have a lower EFC than a two parent but single income household.</p>
<p>We don’t have two kids in college either, we thought we were planning well by having them 8 years apart, but since we need aid anyway, it only means that in the long term we will be paying more</p>
<p>ek- you’re thinking of the Asset Protection Allowance. That more than doubles for a two parent family, hence lowering the EFC for some families (depends on the size of the parental assets).</p>
<p>The income protection allowance is solely a function of number of family members, and number in college.</p>
<p>THis is what I am going by-
I figured our EFC with dividing our income between two parents, and again with the majority of the income earned by one parent
The latter EFC is much higher.
Our before tax income is about $60,000 our EFC is $14,000
If our income is divided evenly between parents teh EFC changes to about $11,000</p>
<p>Normally my EFC is 0, but this year my mom made more than 3 times what she normally makes…so it went up:
Parent’s income $5776
Student’s income $1323
EFC 7</p>
<p>[just so you know, none of that is a typo]</p>
<p>For the last 2 yrs, I was at a cheap(ish) state university and got the max pell grant, merit scholarships, and an fseog of 2000 per year. It all totalled more than my entire costs, giving me money for books and gas. I am now at a private school that costs over ten times as much, still with max pell grant, and merit-based full tuition and fees, but i get only HALF of the fseog, AND i have to do workstudy. What’s up with that?? I’m really afraid that next year, since I have a higher efc, my situation will get even worse…</p>
<p>Your EFC is basically the same as previous years.</p>
<p>The difference is probably that the private school wants you to be “invested” in your education, thus the work study (plus, it costs more than the state university). Don’t know why your fseog was cut in half, but that’s just $1000 less…</p>
<p>Yeah-- virtually no change in EFC. There’s no contribution to EFC coming from your income or your Mom’s income – both are well below the your respecive income protection allowances. The $7 is probably a result of you showing a small amount of funds in a checking or savings account in your name, probably $20 ($20 X .35 = $7.00). That’s what made your EFC go up slightly this year. There’s no asset protection allowance for students.</p>
<p>Well, my daughter’s EFC went up slightly when I filed the corrected FAFSA… but the cool news is that her EFC is now exactly the same as her PIN number. How cool is that? </p>
<p>Of course, I like my own PIN and her brother’s PIN better – from a numerical standpoint, her PIN is more than both of ours added together. But no such luck on my son’s FAFSA – his EFC is a 5 digit figure, through the roof … the perils of a kid who is still “dependent” for FAFSA purposes working full time and saving his money. Don’t believe any of that 35% of assets stuff – once the kid has an income, the numbers end up well above the amount that is actually accumulated from that income.</p>
<p>The student’s income above $2600 results in an increase in the EFC. Work study is excluded. Sudents who make less than that won’t see an increase in EFC due to their income. Student’s assets are calculated separately from income, with no asset protection allowance.</p>
<p>So-- for example, if student makes 2,300, and spends it all before the FAFSA is completed and has no other reportable assets, there will be no contribution to EFC from the student.</p>
<p>Yes, but my son has been out of school working full time for 2 years. We are talking about an annual income in excess of $20K, for a young man who is supporting himself & living on his own. He’s done a remarkably good job of living frugally and saving up – but lets assume for purposes of argument that a kid makes $25K, spends $15K on ordinary living expenses, saves $10K – you are probably talking about an EFC in the range of $14K, well above the total amount of savings, and obviously of not much use if the student plans to stop working full time when he returns to school. </p>
<p>The system is not at all friendly to the working class. My son made a choice that is very reasonable. I am sure that there are many responsible youngsters who graduate from high school with the idea of working a year or two before continuing their education. Certainly several of my daughter’s high school friends seem to be following this route. The problem is that the financial aid system will tend to freeze them out. </p>
<p>If my assets weren’t included in the calculation, my son’s EFC would equal his total savings – in other words, to go to college full time would totally wipe him out financially. </p>
<p>This is very obvious to me because I can compare the FAFSA results for my daughter directly with those for my son – same figure for me, but she has 0 income & savings, whereas he has two years of work + savings. His EFC is three times as much as hers.</p>
<p>EFC is 32K, and would have been higher if I didn’t know how to maximize tax deductions through use of a business entity. I know where to get the first 25K per year, but that last 7K is tough. </p>
<p>My son has decided to go out of state. Too bad the UC system (UCLA, UC San Diego, etc.) has so few undergrad business schools (only UC Berkeley and UC Merced have true undergrad bus schools). Tuition could have been zero, but now will be somewhere between $18K and $32K per year, plus room and board costs of $10K to $12K. </p>
<p>I’m okay with it though–just as long as he upholds his end of the bargain: good study habits, and hopefully, good grades as well as having an enjoyable college experience.</p>
<p>This year my EFC is $10,700 in comparison to last years $16k. I am not entirely sure how this occured as my parents made $3000 more dollars this year and I made well into the double digits working full-time too. Does the amount tend to drop as you continue on through school? I will bea 2nd year student (a sophomore in reality, but I will probably have to be a freshman again in standing) so maybe that has something to do with it. I don’t know but I’m not complaining.</p>
<p>That’s a pretty significant drop, particularly when your parents made a bit more this last year. My guess is that you had significant assets in your name that contributed about 5K of the EFC last year, and you’ve decreased (ie spent) those assets down this year. A difference of 15K in studen assets would account for the drop you described.</p>
<p>What year you are in college doesn’t factor into the calculation.</p>