Enter your SAI and a school's cost of attendance to see your calculated financial need.
What does my SAI mean? Your Student Aid Index is NOT a bill and NOT your final aid offer. Schools use it to calculate your financial need: Cost of Attendance − SAI = Financial Need. Schools then decide how much of that need they'll actually fund — they are not required to meet 100% of it.
SAI replaced the old "Expected Family Contribution" (EFC) starting the 2024–25 award year and can range from -$1,500 to 999,999.
"Financial need" is a calculation, not a guarantee. Schools use it to decide how to allocate their own limited aid budget — many schools, especially public universities with tight budgets, only meet 60–80% of demonstrated need, leaving a real "gap" you'd cover with loans, work, or savings. A small number of well-funded private colleges meet 100% of need. There is no universal published percentage, since it varies by school and changes yearly — always check the actual award letter and the school's own published Net Price Calculator (every federally funded school is required by law to host one).
If your award letter's gap looks large relative to this calculated need, that's exactly the situation an appeal letter is built for — see our Appeal Letter Generator.
Methodology: This tool applies only the federal need formula (COA − SAI). It does not estimate how much aid a specific school will actually offer, since that depends on each school's own funding policy, which we cannot predict. For your real number, use the specific school's own Net Price Calculator.