This formula is used to determine eligibility for all federal aid, including Pell Grants, Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans, Work-Study, and most state scholarship aid. The EFC is determined from the data provided on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and verified using data from federal tax returns and other supplemental documents. When calculating the EFC, FM excludes some forms of income and expenses, and eliminates some assets from consideration.

Most colleges and universities offering institutional scholarship funds use some variation of the Institutional Methodology as established by the College Board. Brown University’s IM adheres to additional policies when reviewing each student's eligibility for scholarship assistance. This analysis includes several income and asset factors not considered in FM. We believe in most instances that the Institutional Methodology of need analysis more accurately determines a family's ability to pay for education. Typically, this EFC will appear on your offer letter from the University. However, there are situations where the IM calculation may actually be lower than the FM calculation due to slight differences in the tables and indexes used to calculate the contribution.