This year I will start med school and my wife starts Pharmacy school. My question is will the EFC be the same for both of us or do financial aid departments take into account that both of us will each need to pay 25K+ for school. We had a combined income of about 70K last year which is about the median combined income for the Philly region although that will obvioiusly drop off in subsequent years. I am just afraid that the financial aid dept. of both schools will come back with an EFC that does not reflect the fact that both of us are in school.

Thanks
Raptor5

For your first year, it will not reflect your absence of a job but some schools will take this into account and adjust your EFC appropriately. One thought is to check what your EFC would be by if you file jointly versus filing separately. You can probably just file separately once you are in school and have little or no income. Then it should not matter that you are both in school at the same time. Good luck..

wow...both are in rich field!