Expected Family Contribution

Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is a term used in the college financial aid process in the United States to determine an applicant's eligibility for need-based federal student aid, and in many cases, state and institutional (college) aid. It is located on the Student Aid Report and Institutional Student Information Record sent after the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is processed. It is an estimate of the parents' and/or student's ability to contribute to post-secondary education expenses. If the FAFSA has not yet been filed, there are a number of calculators on the Web (see links below) that will give a good approximation of a family's EFC.

Need-based aid has to be reapplied for each year; that is, a new FAFSA must be filed every year, the EFC is recalculated, and the financial aid possibly adjusted.

The EFC is not what a student's family actually pays, which is usually higher, sometimes much higher.

The federal government does not distribute aid directly to the student or the student's family; it goes through the college. Colleges use the student's federal student aid eligibility and combine it with state financial aid (if any) and their own aid to create a financial aid package (award), which is sent to the student. Generally speaking, the lower the EFC the higher the financial aid award will be. Zero is the lowest EFC number (the family cannot afford to pay anything) and 99,999 is the highest. Dependent students qualify for an automatic zero EFC if their family’s income is below $23,000 for the 2012-2013 year and they either received funding from any of the Federal Benefits programs (SSI, SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp program), WIC, or Free/Reduced Price Lunch) or filed 1040A, 1040EZ, or were not required to fill out a tax return, or parent is a dislocated worker.

Some relatively wealthy colleges and universities use the CSS Profile, or have their own form, to calculate their own (private) EFC, which they use in distributing the college's own aid. A major difference between the FAFSA and the CSS Profile is that the CSS Profile takes home equity (value of your house) into account when determining ability to pay, while the FAFSA does not.

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