Fin Aid: EFC == 0

I'm pretty sure you did something wrong. I worked for financial aid in college and people that ended up with an EFC of 0 were people in single-parent homes or with combined incomes less than $50,000. Talk with your financial aid counselors and they should be able to sit down and look over this with you. Good luck!

This is normal if you're applying to graduate or professional school. It is not if you are still in college and filling out FAFSA for another undergraduate year.

This does not mean that you will get tremendous grants from your school, however. Just that the federal govt doesn't care what your parents make when calculating your eligibility for federal loans.

Anon420 said:

I just filled out my Fafsa and my EFC is 0. I feel like this is a mistake since my parents make >300k
however they do have 5 kids, 2 which are in college, and 1 more coming soon.

I just want to make sure this wasnt a mistake?


thought?

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Are you in undergrad or going to a professional school. If you're going to a professional school next year then your parental info no longer counts into your EFC (the numbers are just there for the med schools to see) so its just based on your income.

if you entered your parents info on the fafsa, the 0 is a big mistake, you messed up somewhere, with your parents making over 300k, that value is going to be much higher

only way it could be 0 is if you entered only your info and you didnt have any income last year

tigercu said:

if you entered your parents info on the fafsa, the 0 is a big mistake, you messed up somewhere, with your parents making over 300k, that value is going to be much higher

only way it could be 0 is if you entered only your info and you didnt have any income last year

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Not true - as a student you can actually make several thousand before adding anything to your EFC. And as mentioned before - if this is a med student then parental income is not included in EFC, ever, whether it is entered or not. You are considered independent if you are going for a professional degree and as such your parental income doesn't factor into the EFC. If factors into institutional aid - which is why people enter parental income - but it doesn't factor into the EFC.

If you are independent for FAFSA purposes for any of the reasons posted on several previous threads then if you file the 1040EZ your EFC is 0 regardless.

TMP-SMX said:

If you are independent for FAFSA purposes for any of the reasons posted on several previous threads then if you file the 1040EZ your EFC is 0 regardless.

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Really? Why is that? I submitted an EZ the last two years and my EFC wasn't 0....

alwaysaangel said:

Really? Why is that? I submitted an EZ the last two years and my EFC wasn't 0....

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If you make money, the EFC is not zero.

Your parents don't count as stated above.. Most medical students don't make money, so most have an EFC of zero.

Perhaps you reported income.

RockfordWF said:

If you make money, the EFC is not zero.

Your parents don't count as stated above.. Most medical students don't make money, so most have an EFC of zero.

Perhaps you reported income.

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I did report income - I get that. And my tiny EFC has no effect on my financial aid here anyway.

I was just curious why TMP said that as long as you file a 1040EZ your EFC is 0. It would almost make sense since you have to make so little and have no major investments to file an EZ- but as far as I know it isn't true so I was curious where he got his info and if its true or not. Doesn't affect me I just wanted to know for the sake of knowing.

Clarifying the EFC thing somewhat -- a few states have an automatic zero EFC for people who meet certain income/tax cutoffs. I don't live in one of those states, so I don't know specifics, but you can get info about it if you check out the official EFC formula posted in the stickied link thread above.

Also, if you can file an EZ or A form and have income below a certain point (~$49k), your savings/assets aren't counted toward your EFC.

Anon420 said:

Thanks!

Yes, I am applying to med school -- which makes sense. But I don't get it, at every interview day fin aid session it was forced into us that this EFC number is very important AND that your parents income must be reported. So is it just that individual med schools calculate a new EFC based on yours and your parents info? And then this is used to come up with your whole package?

btw for someone who asked, I made so little thsi year I didnt have to file taxes.

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You might want to file taxes regardless if nothing else just to get the "free" 300 or 600 (depending on your status) dollar tax rebate in July. If you file taxes then you end up on the mailing list for those checks. And people like us are the only ones that truly benefit from this "extra" tax rebate. For everyone else they will get less back next year. But for us - we will likely not work and therefore get nothing back next year regardless so it really is free money for us.

Not sure about the EFC thing - our school uses EFC too supposedly but as an independent student it shouldn't include parental info so I don't see how that differentiates people.

I can't remember where I saw the EFC=0 thing with the 1040EZ but I did see it somewhere.

I made more than 3k last year and the EFC was 0. It has nothing to do whether or not you made money on the basic level.

And parental income has no bearing on your EFC if you are a grad student. It only differentiates people for federal loans. Your institution will look at what your EFC would have been with parental information when deciding who to give need based aid and scholarships out.