Our EFC is 500,000????

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

You make $300K and $2 Million in assets, you have plenty of money to pay for college.

2 million asset is 1 million after expenses and taxes, not even enough to pay for 3 kids @350k each after depleting my lifetime savings

Then they go to public or you figure it out. You choose to have three kids and insist they go to a private. You can sell your million dollar house to pay for it.

We don’t have a million dollar house and drive 18 yr old car despite the 230k EFC

And people who live above their means and spend all their money on fancy cars and vacations can show financial need. I get how unfair it is.

+1 this is what really bothers me. People who were frugal and saved don't get any aid, but people who bought expensive cars and what not such that they saved little do get aid.

This is not true of people with higher incomes. This is why people are coming up with these numbers that are a huge % of income — the calculation assumes that you should have been saving all along. Otherwise, it *would* encourage people to spend their money rather than save. Thus, you get all of the people griping about how they’re expected to spend 47% of their income on tuition. The answer is that you aren’t expected to cash flow 47% of your income in any given year; you’re supposed to have saved enough over time to have that much on hand. This does end up disadvantaging people who only started making that much money recently, or maybe had massive hospital bills they had to pay or had periods of unemployment. But that’s considered to be fairer than rewarding people for not saving.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Some schools merit scholarships still require FAFSA be completed. Got an even higher number when we did ours. Kid chose a different school with no merit. Never filling out a FAFSA again (unless the younger one is in the same position).

+1 I told DC go in state. We get zilch. Our EFC was something really high, too, not as high as OP's though.

I'm not paying $70k per year. We are UMC but we are trying to save fore retirement and another DC's college fund. College costs are insane.

Same here. DH and I both graduated from Va public universities in the late 80’s/early 90’s when tuition, fees, and room & board totaled around $10K/year. Now, those same schools are closer to $30k-$40k. We told our kids that VA has a lot of public options and if they want private or OOS, they will need loans.

Cheapskate.

I am cheap, but also very smart.

Paying more for something doesn’t make it any better.

+1 Unless you won't miss the money, the ROI on those expensive degrees don't justify the cost. Stupid move.

Investing in your child's life experiences is unquantifiable in some ways. It's not just about expected income after graduation.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Filling out the fafsa is so easy there is no reason not to unless you have zero need for loans and/or your school doesn't require it for any school based or merit aid.

I did not find it that *easy*. Maybe it's easy if you have almost no assets. Also, I'm self employed, so I wasn't even sure what income I should use.

Our financial situation is pretty complex, but I recall that the FAFSA wasn’t difficult. As I recall, I just linked to the IRS, and all of the income info was downloaded automatically. I had to enter assets, but I calculate the value of our investments at least monthly, so that was straightforward.

Doing the taxes is the heavy lifting, FAFSA just requires some numbers pulled explicitly from the return, there's no ambiguity. But if PP is keeping two sets of books, sure, not really a self employment thing.

? when I was not self employed, filling out stuff like this was easy, like it is for most people. Also, yes, I did link the FAFSA to the IRS, but there were still things I had to figure out. If you only have one retirement account and checking out, then it's super easy. But we have multiple accounts across both my spouse and I.

Being self employed makes it harder because you don't know if you are supposed to report business income (which is all yours since you are self employed) or your income from the business minus business expenses. I had to google it but most of the research was a bit unclear. My spouse also has assets in another country; not a lot, but are we supposed to report that? They want to know your contributions to your 401k. Does that just mean my contribution as an employee or both as an employee and employer?

So, yes, being self employed made filling out FAFSA and CSS more complicated.

You made this harder than it had to be. My DH is self employed. The FAFSA takes your income directly from your IRS forms — gross and net are both reported. It knows what line on the form it wants. And my DH and I have four checking accounts and seven investment accounts. It would take me about fifteen minutes to tell you down to the dollar what is in all of them today. It would take me one minute to tell you what was in them two weeks ago. And yes for assets held abroad — assets are assets.

[Anonymous]

What is EFC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is EFC?

Expected Family Contribution. When you submit the FAFSA, it does exactly one thing. It takes the financial information, and performs a calculation of how much the family can afford, the EFC. This is included in the report, which takes a couple days to come back (or you could calculate by hand with the worksheets). The EFC is an upper bound, and can easily be higher than the cost of any college or even total of schools if multiple siblings are attending at once. Then there's also no promise that a given school won't cost more than the EFC. It's just a formula that compares families.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

That seems about right? They expect you are able to pay about 40% of your income + 5% of your assets each year.

Whether you WANT to pay that much is a different story. And you aren't expected to pay 40% of your income each year - they assume at that level of income you had the ability to save more than someone earning just $45,000/year.

DCUM seems to think the formula should be “what would a UMC family be able to pay without any lifestyle adjustments.” In reality it’s more of a “what would be possible if it were really really important to you” situation.

Making personal sacrifices for your children isn’t for everyone. But don’t get mad that you are being forced to be honest with yourself about it.

This is a perfect summation.

Except we've made personal sacrifices for our child and saved a lot of money, as much as we can save while still paying off our loans, saving for our retirement. And it still may not cover 4 years of college in state.

And I'll say it. You should not have to make substantial lifestyle changes just to afford a basic eduction. You shouldn't. Every person pointing their jealous fingers at people making $400-500K a year or more (and to be clear, we make a fair amount but not that much) is being PO'd at the wrong people.

I work just as hard as someone making less than me. I come from barely above the poverty line, have been working HARD jobs since I was 14. Every summer. During school. Every break. I'm talking things like cleaning hotel rooms, picking produce, waitressing, grocery store work. . . . sometimes 2 jobs in addition to school. Why should I have to spend so much more -no aid, no reasonable tuition bill- to send my kid to school? Why should my kid have to spend 2 years at NOVA before going to 4 year university driven solely by money when DC has excelled in school and has earne the experience she wants?

I make no apologies for what I have. No one has handed ANYTHING to me over my entire life. There's no inheritance coming. No help from anyone. But I also don't think I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

Whoa! You said it out loud!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

Whoa! You said it out loud!

Yeah really, guess PP's kids are being punished because she can't manage money, oops.

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

That seems about right? They expect you are able to pay about 40% of your income + 5% of your assets each year.

Whether you WANT to pay that much is a different story. And you aren't expected to pay 40% of your income each year - they assume at that level of income you had the ability to save more than someone earning just $45,000/year.

DCUM seems to think the formula should be “what would a UMC family be able to pay without any lifestyle adjustments.” In reality it’s more of a “what would be possible if it were really really important to you” situation.

Making personal sacrifices for your children isn’t for everyone. But don’t get mad that you are being forced to be honest with yourself about it.

This is a perfect summation.

Except we've made personal sacrifices for our child and saved a lot of money, as much as we can save while still paying off our loans, saving for our retirement. And it still may not cover 4 years of college in state.

And I'll say it. You should not have to make substantial lifestyle changes just to afford a basic eduction. You shouldn't. Every person pointing their jealous fingers at people making $400-500K a year or more (and to be clear, we make a fair amount but not that much) is being PO'd at the wrong people.

I work just as hard as someone making less than me. I come from barely above the poverty line, have been working HARD jobs since I was 14. Every summer. During school. Every break. I'm talking things like cleaning hotel rooms, picking produce, waitressing, grocery store work. . . . sometimes 2 jobs in addition to school. Why should I have to spend so much more -no aid, no reasonable tuition bill- to send my kid to school? Why should my kid have to spend 2 years at NOVA before going to 4 year university driven solely by money when DC has excelled in school and has earne the experience she wants?

I make no apologies for what I have. No one has handed ANYTHING to me over my entire life. There's no inheritance coming. No help from anyone. But I also don't think I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

No, I am not jealous of you making 500,000. We make over 2 million. However, your attitude is off. You should be able to pay for in state college just from monthly cash flow. Please go see a financial advisor and maybe a therapist while you are at it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

That seems about right? They expect you are able to pay about 40% of your income + 5% of your assets each year.

Whether you WANT to pay that much is a different story. And you aren't expected to pay 40% of your income each year - they assume at that level of income you had the ability to save more than someone earning just $45,000/year.

DCUM seems to think the formula should be “what would a UMC family be able to pay without any lifestyle adjustments.” In reality it’s more of a “what would be possible if it were really really important to you” situation.

Making personal sacrifices for your children isn’t for everyone. But don’t get mad that you are being forced to be honest with yourself about it.

This is a perfect summation.

Except we've made personal sacrifices for our child and saved a lot of money, as much as we can save while still paying off our loans, saving for our retirement. And it still may not cover 4 years of college in state.

And I'll say it. You should not have to make substantial lifestyle changes just to afford a basic eduction. You shouldn't. Every person pointing their jealous fingers at people making $400-500K a year or more (and to be clear, we make a fair amount but not that much) is being PO'd at the wrong people.

I work just as hard as someone making less than me. I come from barely above the poverty line, have been working HARD jobs since I was 14. Every summer. During school. Every break. I'm talking things like cleaning hotel rooms, picking produce, waitressing, grocery store work. . . . sometimes 2 jobs in addition to school. Why should I have to spend so much more -no aid, no reasonable tuition bill- to send my kid to school? Why should my kid have to spend 2 years at NOVA before going to 4 year university driven solely by money when DC has excelled in school and has earne the experience she wants?

I make no apologies for what I have. No one has handed ANYTHING to me over my entire life. There's no inheritance coming. No help from anyone. But I also don't think I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

No, I am not jealous of you making 500,000. We make over 2 million. However, your attitude is off. You should be able to pay for in state college just from monthly cash flow. Please go see a financial advisor and maybe a therapist while you are at it!

Out of $500K, you can easily pay for two kids in private schools, let alone a state school. And, if you saved $50K a year starting at birth you'd have plenty for college adn graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

That seems about right? They expect you are able to pay about 40% of your income + 5% of your assets each year.

Whether you WANT to pay that much is a different story. And you aren't expected to pay 40% of your income each year - they assume at that level of income you had the ability to save more than someone earning just $45,000/year.

DCUM seems to think the formula should be “what would a UMC family be able to pay without any lifestyle adjustments.” In reality it’s more of a “what would be possible if it were really really important to you” situation.

Making personal sacrifices for your children isn’t for everyone. But don’t get mad that you are being forced to be honest with yourself about it.

This is a perfect summation.

Except we've made personal sacrifices for our child and saved a lot of money, as much as we can save while still paying off our loans, saving for our retirement. And it still may not cover 4 years of college in state.

And I'll say it. You should not have to make substantial lifestyle changes just to afford a basic eduction. You shouldn't. Every person pointing their jealous fingers at people making $400-500K a year or more (and to be clear, we make a fair amount but not that much) is being PO'd at the wrong people.

I work just as hard as someone making less than me. I come from barely above the poverty line, have been working HARD jobs since I was 14. Every summer. During school. Every break. I'm talking things like cleaning hotel rooms, picking produce, waitressing, grocery store work. . . . sometimes 2 jobs in addition to school. Why should I have to spend so much more -no aid, no reasonable tuition bill- to send my kid to school? Why should my kid have to spend 2 years at NOVA before going to 4 year university driven solely by money when DC has excelled in school and has earne the experience she wants?

I make no apologies for what I have. No one has handed ANYTHING to me over my entire life. There's no inheritance coming. No help from anyone. But I also don't think I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

Is this you? https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1104990.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools merit scholarships still require FAFSA be completed. Got an even higher number when we did ours. Kid chose a different school with no merit. Never filling out a FAFSA again (unless the younger one is in the same position).

+1 I told DC go in state. We get zilch. Our EFC was something really high, too, not as high as OP's though.

I'm not paying $70k per year. We are UMC but we are trying to save fore retirement and another DC's college fund. College costs are insane.

I think you need to make less than 100k for them to even consider financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools merit scholarships still require FAFSA be completed. Got an even higher number when we did ours. Kid chose a different school with no merit. Never filling out a FAFSA again (unless the younger one is in the same position).

+1 I told DC go in state. We get zilch. Our EFC was something really high, too, not as high as OP's though.

I'm not paying $70k per year. We are UMC but we are trying to save fore retirement and another DC's college fund. College costs are insane.

Same here. DH and I both graduated from Va public universities in the late 80’s/early 90’s when tuition, fees, and room & board totaled around $10K/year. Now, those same schools are closer to $30k-$40k. We told our kids that VA has a lot of public options and if they want private or OOS, they will need loans.

Cheapskate.

No, pp is not a sucker and a fool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our EFC is 230k. We don’t even make that much 300k with both parents working + 2 million assets

That seems about right? They expect you are able to pay about 40% of your income + 5% of your assets each year.

Whether you WANT to pay that much is a different story. And you aren't expected to pay 40% of your income each year - they assume at that level of income you had the ability to save more than someone earning just $45,000/year.

DCUM seems to think the formula should be “what would a UMC family be able to pay without any lifestyle adjustments.” In reality it’s more of a “what would be possible if it were really really important to you” situation.

Making personal sacrifices for your children isn’t for everyone. But don’t get mad that you are being forced to be honest with yourself about it.

This is a perfect summation.

Except we've made personal sacrifices for our child and saved a lot of money, as much as we can save while still paying off our loans, saving for our retirement. And it still may not cover 4 years of college in state.

And I'll say it. You should not have to make substantial lifestyle changes just to afford a basic eduction. You shouldn't. Every person pointing their jealous fingers at people making $400-500K a year or more (and to be clear, we make a fair amount but not that much) is being PO'd at the wrong people.

I work just as hard as someone making less than me. I come from barely above the poverty line, have been working HARD jobs since I was 14. Every summer. During school. Every break. I'm talking things like cleaning hotel rooms, picking produce, waitressing, grocery store work. . . . sometimes 2 jobs in addition to school. Why should I have to spend so much more -no aid, no reasonable tuition bill- to send my kid to school? Why should my kid have to spend 2 years at NOVA before going to 4 year university driven solely by money when DC has excelled in school and has earne the experience she wants?

I make no apologies for what I have. No one has handed ANYTHING to me over my entire life. There's no inheritance coming. No help from anyone. But I also don't think I should be financially punished for it just because other people chose other paths that make less money.

If your child has excelled at school, then search for schools that offer merit aid. There are many. Also- college is not a basic education. The tuition bill is what the market will bear. No different than any other commodity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is this right? On the FAFSA. We make good money but good lord...

you make better than “good money” Ours was $55k with an HHI of $200k