In determining a student's eligibility for federal aid, a school takes the Aid Budget minus the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) to establish a student's documented need.
| Financial Need = Aid Budget - Expected Family Contribution (EFC) |
Most federal aid is need-based and eligibility is based on the student's ability to document need. All students are awarded aid using the same method.
The cost of attendance, also referred to as the aid budget, is an estimate of what it costs for a student to attend for the nine-month academic year and includes allowances for:
With very few exceptions, the aid budget is the maximum amount of aid that a student can receive while attending Buffalo State. The Cost of Attendance pages show the actual aid budgets being used for undergraduate and graduate students.
The Student Aid Report that the student receives after submitting the FAFSA will have the letters EFC on the first page followed by some numbers. EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution and is an estimate of what the family can contribute toward the student's education that academic year.
The Student Aid Report that the student receives after submitting the FAFSA will have the letters EFC on the first page followed by some numbers. EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution and is an estimate of what the family can contribute toward the student's education that academic year.
An EFC of 5,000 literally means that the federal government thinks the family can provide $5,000 toward the cost of attending college that year. In actuality, the EFC is just a number used to determine aid eligibility and does not reflect how much a family will or will not pay towards educational expenses that year.
Below are examples of aid packages at three different schools that have significantly different costs. The student's EFC is the same in each example, but since the budget varies, the student's financial need also varies at each institution.
| Line # | Description | Community College | State University | Private College |
| Line 1 | Cost of Attendance | $10,000 | $22,000 | $40,000 |
| Line 2 | EFC | ($1,000) | ($1,000) | ($1,000) |
| Line 3 | Need (Line 1 - Line 2) | $9,000 | $21,000 | $39,000 |
| Financial Aid that Reduces Need | ||||
| Line 4 | Merit Scholarship | $0 | $1,000 | $8,000 |
| Line 5 | Pell Grant | $4,800 | $4,800 | $4,800 |
| Line 6 | NYS TAP Grant | $3,900 | $3,900 | $3,900 |
| Line 7 | SUNY Tuition Credit | $0 | $500 | $0 |
| Line 8 | Subsidized Loan | $300 | $3,500 | $3,500 |
| Line 9 | Economic Grant | $0 | $0 | $8,000 |
| Line 10 | Total Need-Based Aid | $9,000 | $13,700 | $28,200 |
| Non Need-Based Aid | ||||
| Line 12 | Unsubsidized Loan | $0 | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Line 13 | Total Aid Offered | $9,000 | $15,700 | $30,200 |
| Line 14 | Unmet need | $0 | $7,300 | $10,800 |
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