I keep hearing about this new term SAI, and I'm a bit confused as to how it differs from the EFC that I've heard about from older students. I'm trying to understand what role SAI plays in determining my financial aid package and how it's calculated differently than the EFC used to be. If someone could break down the basic differences between these two calculations and what impact the SAI might have on my aid, that would be really helpful.
Sure, I'd be happy to explain the difference between the two. The Student Aid Index (SAI) and the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) are both tools used by the federal government to determine a family's financial need for postsecondary education, though the EFC was phased out and replaced by the SAI.
Under the new SAI system, the main differences are:
1. Negative SAI: Your SAI can be as low as negative $1,500, which allows schools and states to award their own aid to the neediest students, even if they have already exhausted their federal aid.
2. No Division for Multiple Students: The SAI isn’t divided based on the number of students in college from your family. Under the EFC model, there used to be a kind of 'discount' for families with multiple kids in college at the same time. That is no longer the case.
When it comes down to how the SAI impacts your aid, it mostly works in the same way the EFC used to. Both the EFC and SAI subtract your family's financial capacity (as calculated by their respective formulas) from the cost of education to determine your financial need. This need calculation then influences the type and amount of aid you're eligible to receive.
To understand your SAI, you should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as you would have done previously, and the SAI will be calculated based on the information given there. It's always important to ensure the data entered in the FAFSA is accurate to make sure your SAI is as precise as possible.
While the SAI represents a significant change in how federal aid will be distributed, its main goal stays the same as the EFC it replaced: ensuring that students with the greatest financial need can receive aid to make college more affordable. For more details on this topic, check out this CollegeVine article: https://blog.collegevine.com/sai-vs-efc
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