There are two methods for calculating aid, the Federal Methodology (FM) and the Institutional Methodology (IM).  Both methodologies use the student and parent's income and assets.  The number that each comes up with is called the Expected Family Contribution (EFC).

This is the number that the school and or government states your family can afford to pay each year for college.  Everyone has a no obligation opportunity to find out where they family stands regarding college expenses with one of our agents.  This free meeting includes calculating your family's EFC using both the IM and FM.  The IM requires home equity information as well as retirement assets while the FM only requires income and non-retirement investments, excluding real estate.  A general breakdown of the FM is listed below. A private institution will have the option of using either their own IM or the FM depending on which works in the schools favor more.