Financial need is defined as the difference between the established cost of attendance for an academic year less the a family’s calculated ability to pay towards educational costs for the given year. Here is the calculation:
Cost of Attendance (COA) less Expected Family Contribution (EFC) equals Financial Need
Establishing Need for Federal Student Aid
- Requires completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
- Determined using federal methodology
Establishing Need for Institutional Aid
- Requires completion of the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile
- Determined using institutional methodology
Notes:
- The aforementioned methodologies (federal and institutional) determine the federal SAI (Student Aid Index) and institutional EFC (Expected Family Contribution), which basically reflects the amount financial strength, based on the respective standardized formula, that a family is expected to be able to devote towards educational costs in a given year.
- While many variables are used in the methodology calculations, the most common factors in the calculations are as follows:
- Parent calendar year income for the specified year
- Student calendar year income for the specified year
- Value of parent assets
- Value of student assets
- Number of household members
- Number of household members in college (starting in 2024-25, only applicable for the CSS Profile institutional methodology)
- Age of oldest parent
- Institutional methodology requires financial data from a non-custodial parent in scenarios where a student’s parents are separated/divorced.
- Institutional methodology also requires verification of sibling college enrollment shortly after the start of the student’s Tulane enrollment.
