What You Want Is Not Always What You Get

Filling the Financial Gap

Financial need plays a big role on college admission decisions, but equally important is: How much of that need will you get? Remember only the richest schools can afford to give the full need of admitted applicants.

Many colleges, unfortunately, often offer aid packages that leave a gap between the aid award and the amount a student needs to enroll. Demonstrated need is the amount the colleges determine; not necessarily what you need to enroll. Theoretically, the demonstrated need is the difference between the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and the cost of attending that college.

But today, since the US government introduced the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), EFC now includes household income and assets. After factoring in a hefty allowance for your parents’ retirement nest and performing other sundry calculations, they calculate your EFC.

Demonstrating Financial Need

The College Board also supplies a new financial aid for called the CSS/PROFILE. The purpose of the PROFILE is to delve deeper into your family’s financial situation. It asks for details like home equity, student’s summer earnings, assets in foreign countries and some other funny details. The result is an application that sometimes require filling out three forms for a single college.

College can use either the federal methodology (FM) or its own institutional methodology (IM). An FM college will only require you to file the FAFSA, but the downside is that these aid packages always come with a gap. The IM, on the other hand, will require you to obtain many more details about your family.

These are all used to calculate your aid package, which unfortunately, are sometimes not enough.