phragmipedium
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2008
I was telling DH about what I've learned on here about what the EFC really means, and he was as surprised as I was. We both really thought that it was what the school thought that the family could afford to pay, not just the number that is spit out of a formula after determining how much aid that family qualifies for even if the school knows that the average family could never write an annual check for that amount. They shouldn't call it the EFC, because it's just confusing to people who know that they don't have 30K or whatever to put towards college every year. They should call it something else, like the "leftover amount that you'll have to find some way to pay for"!
I very much agree that it's not well described or explained by FAFSA. It's a pretty archaic formula, though, and it's what we have to work with. Sometimes, families end up having to pay *less* than their EFC or nothing at all - students get great scholarships, private school offers them a great aid package, etc. It's hard to know a lot about how to judge your EFC, other than - if it's higher than a school's cost of attendance (estimated tuition, books and supplies, room/board, personal expenses), you'll almost certainly only qualify for unsubsidized student and parent loans, as well as any scholarships the school offers or the student has accumulated. And if it's below $4300, the student should receive the federal Pell grant and maybe more grant aid as well, along with loans. But between those two, it's hard to judge whether it's low enough for grants at the school of your choice, or high enough that it will only be loans - you just have wait to see.
Please keep in mind that it really isn't the school determining your EFC, though, or giving you what you feel is a ridiculous EFC that you could never afford - the federal processor calculates it based on the information you report on the FAFSA, and then reports it to each of the schools you list on your FAFSA application. Unless there are special circumstances and the aid office tinkers with your EFC at your request, the school has nothing to do with the calculation itself. They just use that number, figure out where it falls along with all their other students, and determine how the money has to be spread around. Sometimes they have some ability to determine how large awards will be and how high the cutoffs will be, like with campus-based federal grant aid, but other times they are limited to federal regulations (ie no Pell grant for EFCs over $4300.) Private schools have the same limitations with federal aid but clearly much more private funding to work with and spend as they choose.