[dollaaron]

This is a no tuition guarantee, not a no parental contribution guarantee. In effect they are saying that if you make under 125,000, you'll only pay 20-25k for living expenses (room/board/textbooks/etc), which is similar to Harvard and Princeton, considering they both try to structure aid so families do not have to take loans out to pay them. Coincidentally (or not), this is also equivalent to the FAFSA EFC as you mentioned.

In this announcement Stanford clearly says that the no parental contribution level is 65,000, raised from 60,000 and now equivalent to Harvard/Princeton.

[austenallred]

The "parental contribution level" was always frustrating to me. There's no way my parents were going to pay for my education, so that number being high and tuition being zero doesn't really help anything.

Am I misunderstanding how that works, or are they just saying "the parents should pay x and the student z - x" when they really mean "the total cost is z?"