SAI (Student Aid Index)

Category: finance

An index number calculated from FAFSA data used by financial aid offices to determine total aid eligibility.

Replacing the legacy Expected Family Contribution (EFC) metric, the SAI can drop down to a negative floor of -1500 to flag students with extreme financial need. Financial aid officers subtract the SAI from the college’s total Cost of Attendance (COA) to determine the net financial need window.

Common Examples

• The financial aid office used our SAI index calculation to structure a full-ride need-based grant award package.
• An SAI index of zero signals that the family has zero spare financial resources to contribute toward higher education tuition lines.