My EFC is 2200 and last semester it was 0!?

Question

I am a ward of the court living independantly renting out from a friend and only had a $12,000 income last year and currently only have $200 in my bank account. I filed single, but I had pretty much the same responses for the Spring semester, what is wrong?

Answer 1

Your EFC can change from year to year.  Were you independent last year 2007?  And also did you work in 2007 and did you make less?  I'm afraid that when you are single and make a certain amount of money you don't qualify for those many funds.  You would need to speak to your advisor to see what exactly was the change on your application.

Answer 2

Even though it might not seem like it, the government thinks that $12,000 is a lot of money for a single person.

You really should be grateful that you are going to get any grants at all.

Answer 3

They expect you to have saved some of your earnings for tuition.

Answer 4

Okay - let's see here - in calculating your EFC, the correct EFC worksheet seems to be EFC Formula B: Independent Student without dependent(s) other than a spouse. Because your income was less than $49,999, you qualify for the "simplified" version of this worksheet.

Looking down the boxes, the EFC calculators would take your $12,000 income (if that's all the money income you had last year), and subtract out any federal income tax, state income tax,  and social security tax that you paid. They would then subtract an income allowance of $6220 for an unmarried student, and multiply the remaining total by .5.

The result would be your EFC, because the "simplified form" ignores the contribution of any assets you might have (the $200 bank account has no impact)

Doing a little math here

12,000 - 6220 = 5780. Divide by 2, and we get 2890. Pretty close to the EFC they came up with for you - and I didn't even take into consideration whatever income taxes and social security taxes you paid.

As one previous respondent told you, the Department of Education believes that the party with the primary responsibility for paying the college expenses of an independent is the student himself. The government assists. As far as they're concerned, a good part of that $12,000 you earned should have been earmarked to pay your college expenses.

You and I both realize that a real live human being has far more than just college bills to worry about, but the Department of Education believes that education bills take top priority.

I know this isn't what you hoped to hear, but I'm guessing that the EFC calculation they did for you this year was pretty much accurate. Any money that you made last year - even if it's only $12,000 is supposed to pay, mostly for school, and offset your need for financial assistance.

Good luck!