It is my understanding that the EFC set by FAFSA is reached using a set formula (The Federal Need Analysis Methodology"). Some posts on this site about asking a school for a better financial aid package mention asking for a "financial review", and to ask the individual college financial aid offices to make a "professional judgment". The latter (Professional judgment) seems to refer to the authority of a school's financial aid administrator to make adjustments to the data elements on the fafsa. I am very confused: Are we to ask a school to use its professional judgment only to overcome a fafsa EFC determination? I would be OK with paying my estimated EFC, but none of the schools that my kids applied to (I have triplets) seem to have taken this into consideration. Even a school that claims to meet 100% of the demonstrated financial need does not cover $10K/year over our EFC.
What is the appropriate procedure and most successful arguments when we are OK with paying our EFC but the school is not meeting it?
Thank you!
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