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Why Your Expected Family Contribution Is Important

One of the biggest questions that parents ask when their teenagers start exploring colleges is this: Will we qualify for financial aid?

It’s impossible for families to answer this question, however, until they get a sense about what their Expected Family Contribution will be.

Your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is a dollar figure that schools will expect your family to pay, at a minimum, for one year of college.

The lower the figure , the more likely you would capture financial aid. An EFC can be as low as $0. That means a family would not be capable of helping out with any of a child's college costs. On the flip side, there is no ceiling for how high an EFC can be for rich families.

Obtaining Your EFC


Before you can get a handle on what college costs you might face, you should obtain your preliminary EFC. Regardless of what year your child is in high school, it's not too early to generate this number.

It's easy to obtain an EFC if you use a free EFC calculator on the Internet. Here are two sources for EFC calculators:

What's Next


By itself, your EFC won't tell you how much aid you might receive. You also need to know the price of individual schools.

You’ll need to subtract your EFC from a college's cost of attendence. The number you generate is what's called your demonstrated financial need.

Let's use Stanford University as an example. When you add up Stanford's cost of attendence - tuition, room and board, books and transportation, the price would be $54,446. If you qualify for aid, however, this price tag is truly meaningless.

Let’s suppose that your family's EFC is $18,000. After subtracting $18,000 from $54,446, you would qualify for more than $36,000 in financial aid.

Because Stanford and many elite schools have excellent financial aid policies, your child would receive roughly $36,000 in aid. Most schools, however, can't meet 100% of a student's need. The key is finding schools that will be as generous as possible.

Union Plus Education Services Can Help Union Families


If you have more questions about planning for college or need help affording it, visit UnionPlus.org/Education. Union Plus provides union families with scholarships, discounts on college test (e.g. SAT/ACT) preparation, education grants and much more.

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EFC Questions

Here are some of the questions that any EFC calculator will ask, so make sure you have this information available:

  • Number of people in household
  • Marital status of parents
  • Age of older parent
  • Number of children in college
  • Adjusted gross income from most recent calendar year
  • Income taxes paid for most recent calendar year
  • Non-retirement assets
  • Cash, savings, checking
  • Business equity

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