EFC Determines Your Pell Grant Eligibility
Pell Grant Eligibility
EFC means expected family contribution. This determines your Pell Grant Eligibility of a student for college scholarships. The family’s financial history is looked into to estimate how much they can spend on their children’s education. Accordingly the federal government decides on the amount of money that will be awarded to the student. Since the Pell grant award is free money, EFC is looked into with regards to your Pell Grant eligibility. If the student has already availed him or herself of any loans or grants then his financial history is also taken into consideration for Pell Grant eligibility.
Pell Grant Eligibility And Your Pell Grant Amount
Once EFC is calculated then the student will know exactly how much he/she is entitled to. Then he needs to fill fafsa application that is freely available at the government FAFSA site. On verification of all the details given in the fafsa form by the student, his scholarship is given to him/her. The family’s annual income, expenses, assets if any, how much tax is paid annually are all taken into consideration to arrive at Pell grant award.
There are online Pell Grant eligibility calculators available that will help you in knowing the dollar amount for this scholarship. Log on to the websites that offer online information regarding Pell Grant awards to know exactly how much you will need to enroll for any particular college. This is given only for citizens of America. International students do not qualify for the award.
Lower EFC Gives Higher Pell Grant Eligibility
The lower your efc, the more your award will be. For example; if your family can contribute $100 towards your education then the scholarship amount will be more. Say if your efc is $2000 then your award will be considerably less. The responsibility of efc first rests with the student and then parents. Each student is awarded with a different amount of free money through the grant, depending upon the EFC of the individual. The colleges look into this case by case and not on a unanimous basis as everyone has different Pell Grant eligibility.