How Does a Pell Grant Calculator
Use FAFSA EFC to Compare College Costs?
This Pell grant calculator uses the 2010-2011 payment schedule to determine awards.
The calculator is most useful if you've completed your Pell grant application. At this point you should know your FAFSA EFC (given at the end of the Pell grant form) and have some idea of your cost of attendance (CoA). Find out your award amount and start figuring out if it will be enough, or whether you will need college loans.
To use the Pell grant calculator you must have Javascript enabled. Simply enter your EFC number, the school's cost of attendance for one year and choose an enrollment status.
These figures are based on the payment and disbursement schedules for Pell Grant awards, January 2010 for the 2010-2011 school year.Financial aid officers have some leeway in determining your award. It is the schools that set their cost of attendance and they can adjust your EFC under certain circumstances to increase your Pell grant amounts. Likewise, it is the schools who determine whether you are meeting the Pell grant requirements so that you can continue to get your awards every year.
Some of the changes for 2010-11 are: - maximum award increased to $5,550 (for an EFC of 0 and a CoA above $4,860, enrolled fulltime)
- minimum award overall is $659 (enrolled less than halftime)
- minimum award for a fulltime student is $1,176 (EFC 4617, CoA of over $4,860)
If you are thinking about college and you are wondering if you can afford it, well that is what a Pell grant is for. If you know that Pell grant eligibility is not a problem and you meet the qualifications, then start figuring out what you can get. The calculator can be useful if you want to compare college costs to see if one school would qualify you for a higher amount than another. It may also help you decide whether to go to school full-time or part-time. If you are already receiving Pell grants and you want to see how much you would get if you (for instance) switched to part-time, this tool will tell you. You can also use it to check an award amount given by your school, to make sure it is right. And in this economic recession, you can use it in your personal budgeting to make a decision about a college loan.
If you use a different Pell grant calculator, it may not be based on 2010-2011 figures. One way to tell if a calculator is using the latest data is to see if there is an option for "less than halftime". The 2009-2010 school year was the first time that Pell grants were able to be used for this type of enrollment.
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