<p>If 2 siblings are in college during an academic year, is that EFC allocated exactly in half to each student (assuming the 2 siblings’ assets are equivalent)? Is this allocation done regardless of the difference in COAs for the 2 siblings’ schools?</p>
<p>Let’s take a hypothetical scenario for the academic year 2010-2011. Sibling 1’s COA is $20,000 and sibling 2’s COA is $45,000. EFC is calculated to be $50,000. If the EFC is split in half, with each allocated $25,000, then the EFC for sibling 1 is $5000 more than the COA.</p>
<p>Does this mean that while sibling 1 has zero need, sibling 2’s need is calculated as $20,000 ($45,000 minus the $25,000 EFC)? Or is the EFC only allocated up to the COA? In that case, sibling 1 gets allocated $20,000 of the EFC leaving $30,000 remaining to be applied to sibling 2. Sibling 2 would then have only $15,000 in need ($45,000 COA minus $30,000 remaining EFC).</p>
<p>Afaik, only the parent’s “contribution” to EFC is split. Each student can be adding a different amount to their EFC through their own income/assets. As far as one having more EFC than COA, this would make sense since the processors really have no idea what the COA is and do not calculate need.</p>
<p>If the parents are generating all of the EFC; then yes, your students’ EFCs would be split evenly regardless of the school’s cost of attendance. I have seen this happen several times before.</p>
<p>For FAFSA it is the EFC formula that divides the EFC. As FAFSA is completely unaware of the COA of the schools, the COA is irrelevant to the calculation of the EFC. Any part of the FAFSA EFC caused by parent assets/income is divided evenly between the number in college. Any part of the EFC caused by the students’ own income/assets stays with that student. So in your scenario both student 1 and student 2 would have a FAFSA EFC of 25,000 giving student 1 0 need and student 2 20,000 need - for federal aid purposes.</p>
<p>However I believe schools using CSSprofile or their own financial aid forms (which is likely in a school with a $45k price tag) may adjust the institutional ‘EFC’ (the figure used to award institutional aid rather than federal aid)of their student in a different manner to how FAFSA adjusts the FAFSA EFC. For instance they may not reduce the institutional EFC by 50% but by some other %. This depends on the school but I have seen a reduction figure of 40% quoted frequently in posts on CC. In that instance student 2s institutional EFC might be 30,000. And/or they may take into account what the COA is for the sibling not attending their school when determining the institutional EFC. Each CSSprofile school will have their own methodology for institutional aid purposes. I don’t have any personal experience of this but have seen this discussed on CC several times.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses, which are consistent with what I thought to be true (EFC is split evenly for FAFSA schools). I was vaguely remembering a form somewhere along the line where it actually asked for the sibling’s COA, but I’ve filled out so many forms and calculators in the past couple of years that I starting to second-guess myself.</p>
<p>As far as Profile, it seems to be anyone’s guess as to the impact of various financial numbers to the final determination of need.</p>
<p>Even if they meet 100% need it may be the need as calculated by their policies which may not be in line with the FAFSA EFC. Generally it is the schools that promise to meet 100% need without loans that tend to calculate a different institutional EFC than that produced by FAFSA.</p>