My niece has been accepted to NYU. The tuition plus room and board was (rounding) $45,000.
My sister’s Expected Family Contribution, according to her FAFSA, is $19,000.
But what does this mean? If she is expected to “contribute” $19,000, who contributes the other $26,000? I’m confused. She’s confused. We’re dumb.
Her family is expected to contribute the $19,000. The remainder is in the form of grants, loans, and scholarships.
If your neice does decide to attend NYU, they will put together a comprehensive financial aid package that generally takes advantage of federal aid programs, possible state aid programs, and whatever the university can offer that she might be eligible for. It is possible that the entire cost of her education can be financed thru the financial aid package; at least, mine is.
Robin
Isn’t a loan a family contribution?
In order to get the $19,000 they’ll need loans. So how is the $26,000 different?
Because the $26,000 doesn’t necessarily come from loans. It may include grants or scholarships which don’t need to be paid back. I’m not sure, but they probably also take this figure into consideration when deciding if you’re eligible for government subsidized loans (with less or no interest than other loans).
Really, the financial package offered by your school is more important than the EFC on your FAFSA.
The $19,000 is the family’s money – they’re expected to make some sacrifices to send the kid to college. The remaining money would come from the government, as direct grant and/or government-guaranteed student loans, which must be paid back. The total student aid will not exceed $26,000.
With three in college right now (God help me!) I still find myself totally baffled by financial aid.
Here’s another way to look at it.
Your niece wants to go to a school that costs $45,000. The school will put together a package (scholarships, grants, loans, work study, whatever) that will cover $26,000.
The remainder ($19,000) is up to your niece to come up with. It can come from savings, loans, individual scholarships, rich relatives, summer jobs or anywhere else.
EFC is just a jumping off point. For example, the last time Ardred did his financial aid, his EFC (as he’s an adult) was something like $160. The rest of the $5000 was offered in loans, work-study programs, grants, scholarships or some combo of the above.
Just to flesh out the replies here, EFC means “This is what, according to our formulas, colleges would expect your family to fork over for college.”
The difference between EFC and total college cost, or budget, is what they call NEED.
If your niece’s EFC is $19,000, then her need at a school which costs $18,000 is $0
At a school which costs $25,000, her need is $6,000,
At a school which costs $29,000, her need is $10,000.
Schools which offer financial aid are going to be concerned with her need. As others have said, they may offer grants, loans, work study, or a combination of the three to meet her need. But what others have not said is that some schools do not cover all the need. So what the offer may be less than need. I doubt this is the case with NYU, but useful to know in a general sense.
If the family needs loans to meet their EFC, that will be something they will arrange privately, outside of the school. There are programs for that and the school can give you some information, but that’s something that they don’t negotiate for or with you. And generally those will be loans that the PARENTS take out.
If, upon recieving a financial aid package from a school, the family feels that they can’t meet the expected ‘contribution’, you most often can reques that the school re-evaluate your package. Do this ASAP if nessecary, because often, aid is on a first-come-first-serve basis.
[financial aid officer hat ON]
The EFC can be met with a federal PLUS (Parent) loan. It does not necessarily have to come from savings, job earnings, etc. The PLUS is a non need-based loan which may be included automatically in her aid package, or may be added at her parents’ request. It can be awarded up to the cost of attendance ($45K) minus her other aid. So if, for example, she is awarded only $20K in “desirable aid” (grants, scholarships, work-study, low interest student loans), her parents could borrow up to $25K in the PLUS, thus completely covering her cost of attendance.
There’s a great non-government, non-profit website I like to refer my students and parents to: www.finaid.org. Covers all the basics, and of course they should feel free to call up the FA office at NYU with specific questions.
[/financial aid officer hat OFF]
Hey! Financial Aid Officer? I have a question. Now, please note that I was graduated from college nearly 15 years ago and the loans have long since been paid off. But there’s still one thing I don’t get. (I may never get this.)
My folks said to me, “when you turn 18, you’re a legal adult. Good luck with that.” and refused to hand over so much as a dime (nary a phone call of support, “how’s midterms going?” or anything, for that matter) for college, rent, food or anything. So FAFSA requires LAST years tax returns. So what if my dad claimed me as a dependent last year, when I was 17 and still in high school. Now, see, we’re talking about next year, when I will be a legal adult, will claim myself and daddy ain’t funding my education. How come, just because I was an incoming freshmen, FAFSA and my school refused to acknowledge that I was on my own and didn’t give me much financial aid? I don’t even think it’s fair they required my dad’s tax returns, seeing as how, as an adult, his finances are not part of my picture. True, many kids’ parents foot the bill, or part of it, after 18, but mine – and many others like mine – did not.
The following year, after I had gone in debt up to my eyeballs, FAFSA recommended and my school forked over nearly a full free ride in grants, loans, scholarships and aid. Why did I have to suffer a year before getting any aid? Doesn’t FAFSA realize this is why so many kids don’t go to college? Many of us got stuck in that Parents-make-too-much-to-get-much-aid-but-it-doesn’t-matter-because-they-still-don’t-care-you’re-broke
vicious circle…
You actually got lucky. The rules later changed. There used to be just a couple of questions which determined whether you were an independent or dependent student. If I remember correctly, the questions were if you lived with your parents, were supported by them , or were claimed on their taxes. If you answered “yes” to any question for either the year you wanted the aid or the year before , you were a dependent student. The only one that could really be proven one way or the other was the taxes. I had plenty of friends who at least fudged on the other ones- claiming they didn’t live with their parents when they lived in the basement of their parent’s house, for example and that they supported themselves on $3000 a year from a part-time job. They were classified as dependent the first year and independent the second year, and got aid the second year, since they figured out the trick was to not be claimed on the parental tax return. Then the rules changed ( possibly because someone decided too many people were pulling that trick ), and anyone under a certain age ( I think 24) was dependent unless they were married, had a child or had been in the military.
Then the rules changed-
Yup, the rules changed, back in the early 90’s, I believe. Now, if your parents don’t support you, you’re generally just SOL under the federal rules. You can appeal to your school for something called a “dependency override”, wherein you prove that you are estranged from your parents, can’t locate them, they’re incarcerated, etc., although the feds have cracked down on that option as well in the last few years and it’s pretty hard to have that sort of request approved.
This sort of situation is so frustrating for us because the government expects your parents to support you until you reach 24 (!), marry, have a dependent, enter grad school, become orphaned (duh), or leave the military–and we all know that many parents simply don’t feel that obligation applies to them, so they refuse to fill out the financial aid paperwork. It leaves us between the proverbial rock and hard place, and causes many students to have to work many more hours than they should, borrow loans up to their eyeballs, and attend less than fulltime, which can cause burnout and exhaustion.
Speaking as someone who was in that very position as a student, I can say I survived, and learned a lot of independence and time management skills, but it also caused a lot of resentment between my parents and me. Ultimately, the federal financial aid system, like all bureaucracies, is designed to work for the greatest number of people possible, and when there’s an exception to the rule there’s not always a legitimate way to address it, unfortunately.
Sorry, I’m rambling. Time to go to bed 
What is special about NYU that makes one year’s attendance cost more than the average American’s income?
It’s a public school, no?
Seriously, I’m not meaning for this to sound snarky. I’ve just never heard of a public school costing that much and I’m wondering where NYU gets off charging that much. Are they a particularly exclusive school or something?
No.
Both HallGirls are in college, and with my paltry yearly income, even tough there’s a EFC on their FAFSA, the reality of it is that I simply cannot afford to contribute towards their college expenses. (I was a nontraditional student, and I’ve got MY school loans up to my ears that I can’t pay!) The older HallGirl is living in another city and attending school full time and is completely self sufficient (and has been for the past 18 months), but because she’s under 24, my income is needed for her financial aid. Where’s the sense in THAT? I don’t mind giving the info for FAFSA, however, she could get a lot more financial aid if she relied upon her own income for reporting.
It just doesn’t seem fair to her (or the other students who are in similiar situations).
I’m sure Emony Dax can speak to today’s conditions better than I can, but at least in my case nearly twenty years ago, the EFC is just the federally recommended starting point for determining a student’s actual need. It will determine how much federal aid the student is eligible for, but at least in my case most of my aid wasn’t from federal sources – the bulk of it was private. I started college in 1982, just as the Reagan-era cuts in student aid were beginning to take effect. My EFC went up over 1000% (yes, thousand) during my four years of college (no increase in income or other appreciable change in family financial status during that time), so that by my junior year it far outstripped what my family could afford, even after taking out the largest PLUS loans we were eligible for. Fortunately, I went to a small liberal arts college that was reasonably well endowed, and where the financial aid officers could take a personal interest in individual students – I requested a personal interview with the financial aid office just before my junior year after receiving my initial aid offer for the year, and the director sort of took me on as a personal project, beating the bushes for enough additional scholarship money that I was able to finish without bankrupting my family. As I understand it, financial aid offices are more likely to go out of their way for established students who’ve demonstrated that they’re serious and making good progress toward a degree than for first-year students, who’re obviously more of a risk. Also, private schools frequently have a lot more discretionary aid to offer, depending on how well-off the school is; again, demonstrated academic ability has a lot to do with how likely you are to score any of it.
I am a former FAO (well, technically I worked for the William D. Ford Federal Direct Student Loan Office) and I had to deal with complaints based on this everyday. It got so depressing, because there are thousands of kids out there whose parents don’t support them after 18 and the appeals process is a pain in the ass that can take so long that the deadline for financial aid has passed (and even then the answer might be “Nope, sorry, don’t b’lieve ya”. I LITERALLY knew one couple (a gay man and a straight woman) who got married on paper just to get around this- they never lived together and barely knew each other, but as soon as they had that piece of paper they were automatically independent.