I said quite specifically that it doesn’t matter either way to me if he had all merit based aid or if he had applied for and received need based support either federally or from the schools.
Again - I used a laundry list that should have been longer and included the high cost of living area people and people who were unemployed or underemployed before so now have low savings and high income and people who used to homeschool so may have lower savings but went back to work and now have a higher income, etc. etc. The point remains the same that there are lots of individual special circumstance and many people (I expressly excluded @albert96 from this group) don’t understand that the FAFSA number is what it is based on the last year’s taxes and a snapshot of assets and schools may choose to consider or ignore any other “special” financial circumstances. @albert96 took a sound strategy to avoid financial worries but lots and lots of kids and parents don’t. THAT is what this thread is supposed to be about.