What do the numbers $7,000, $42,000, $44,000, $56,000, $58,000, $72,000 and $81,000 have in common? Each is a net price estimate (rounded) that we received from a different college, using the same data inputs. That’s one example of why one might reasonably argue that Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is of marginal significance.
Browsing Category
Financial Aid
When you start looking at specific colleges, net price calculators are the best tool to figure out how much the school will actually cost– especially since they will show the aid package including self-help aid (loans and work study). Anyone who has gone through this process knows that the net price tends to differ quite a bit from EFC. And…
Last month– as it does every May– the Department of Education released its Needs Methodology for the coming FAFSA. The Higher Education Act of 1965 requires that the Income Protection Allowance, Adjusted Net Worth of a Business or Farm, the Education Savings and Asset Protection Allowance, and the Assessment Schedules and Rates be updated annually for inflation.
Do you have to pay taxes on a scholarship? It depends what the scholarship is for. To understand taxes on scholarships, it’s worth remembering that the IRS defines qualified expenses differently for different purposes. Expenses get more or less the same treatment for taxability of scholarships as they do for education tax credits, so let’s review those.
As conditioned as we are to thinking about college as a seller’s market where schools have all the leverage, the NACAC College Openings Update, published every May, serves as a reminder that for the majority of schools, students are in the driver’s seat.