How School's Determine Families Eligibility

In this post, I am going to talk about how the schools (colleges) determine if you or the next family is eligible for aid.

It's a very basic formula and there are three factors they take into consideration.

COA - Cost Of Attnedance

EFC - Expected Family Contribution

Need

Basically what they do is take the "cost of attendance" (COA) and substract what is called the "expected family contribution" (EFC) and the difference, if any, is what is deemed the "need". And if there is a need, you have an eligibility for need-based financial aid. Its as simple as that.
Now let's break it down.

Cost of attendance stands for tuition, fees, books, computer, room and board, living expenses and every other expense that you incure in sending your child to a school should be included in the school's cost of attendance figure or budget. It they don't include it in the calculation, you need to make sure that they do.

The second factor is the expected family contribution. Now, by the way, cost of attendance is a fixed number. You have no power or control over that particular number. The thing you do have more control over is the expected family contribution. This figure is based on the parents and students income, assets, age of the parents, the number of people in the family, and the number of people that are going to college.

If you understand the way the formula works, and what the different variables are, what weights are associated with the different variables then you can do exactly what a good CPA does, you can legally and ethically work within the realm of that formula to lower that number and by lowering that number, you will increase your need.

If you increase your need, which is the amount that you'd be eligible for in financial aid, you are eligible for more funds from particular schools. It is as simple as that.

So you can't do anything about the cost of attendance other than where you pick to go to school, but you certainly want to do everything in your power to lower the expected family contribution as low as possible and increase the need as much as possible.

In the next post, I will talk about some of the sources of financial aid.

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