Parent Contribution Calculator

Last updated July 2, 2026

The Expected Family Contribution — now called the Student Aid Index under the reformed FAFSA framework — is the Department of Education's estimate of how much a family can reasonably contribute toward college costs in a given year. It is calculated from income and asset data submitted on the FAFSA, using formulas that treat parental income, parental assets, student income, and student assets differently. Parental assets are assessed at a maximum rate of 5.64 percent in the federal formula — meaning a family with $100,000 in non-retirement savings is expected to contribute at most $5,640 from that source annually. Student assets, by contrast, are assessed at 20 percent, which is why financial aid advisors often suggest keeping savings in parent-owned rather than student-owned accounts.

The SAI is a floor, not a ceiling. Colleges are not required to meet full financial need, and many don't. A family with an SAI of $8,000 at a school that provides $20,000 in aid toward a $65,000 cost of attendance still faces a $37,000 gap — none of which is covered by the federal calculation. The highest-need families often get the best deals at selective private universities with large endowments that can afford to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need; middle-income families frequently find the net price at expensive private schools not meaningfully lower than at public universities, making the state school a better value for their specific income bracket.

Running the net price calculator on every college's website before applying — it uses the same basic inputs as the FAFSA to estimate your family's expected contribution and likely financial aid package. The SAI tells you what the government thinks you can pay; the net price calculator tells you what a specific school actually charges families in your income range. Those two numbers are often very different.