Uhh, How Come My EFC is $0?

[DesiMD]

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Ok, this is odd. When I filed my FAFSA in high school, my EFC was like 30K+. I haven't filed since, but now I'm worried I did something wrong. My dad makes about 150K a year. Has around 150K in the bank, and about 50K in the market. He has no debt or anything, yet my EFC is 0? 😕

I'm not complaining, but just kinda confused, that's all. How does my EFC go from over $30K to $0 when my family's financial situation has only improved? I'm pretty sure I filled everything out correctly as well. Anyone else get the same thing?

 

[Doctora Foxy]

Several SNDers got zero as well, just do a search for efc and you'll find lots of recent info.

Don't forget that the EFC just looks at your info and disregards parental assets and income, as far as I know. So it's perfectly normal. Upon entry into med school you are independent from your parents and fafsa takes that into account.

 

[SMW]

Welcome to SDN!! 😀 There have been a lot of recent threads explaining the ins and outs of FAFSA for professional/graduate students. Read them for a lot of useful info. In a nutshell, the answer to your question is, because as a professional student you're considered independant, and your parents' income is not taken into account in calculating the EFC. The "family" in this case is you (+ spouse, if you have one). That doesn't mean that med schools won't take it into consideration when handing out their own grants/loans/scholarships -- they will in most cases. FAFSA is only for federal aid i.e. Stafford loans.

 

[DesiMD]

Thanks Doctor Foxy and SMW. That makes sense since I'm considered independent from my parents. A couple other quick questions for anyone who can answer them. What qualifies one for subsidized loans? Are you only eligibile for subsidized loans after you've taken the full amount out for unsubsidized loans?

 

[drjo2002]

subsidized loans are need based, so as long as you have need you can get those, once you take out the max sub loans you get the unsub. I think there is a max around 8500 or 6500 for med school students and then you get another 14500 or so in unsub. stafford ( you can check with the fin aid office at your med school to find out the exact values). Your EFC of zero should qualify you no problem 🙂

 

[rxfudd]

•••quote:•••Originally posted by drjo2002:
•I think there is a max around 8500 or 6500 for med school students and then you get another 14500 or so in unsub. stafford. •••••Actually, there's a max on total Stafford loans of $38,500 - this means that you can take a maximum of $8,500 in subsidized and $30,000 unsubsidized.

 

[Badgerbabe]

Please tell me that's 38,500 per year, and not for the whole thing!!!

 

[rxfudd]

Heh...yes, per year.

 

[drjo2002]

yeah, so I was close with the sub estimate... thanks for listing the real values 🙂 I didn't think it was quite that high for some reason I thought it was around 24,000 total for the year.