No choice. You most use the tax year designated for your FAFSA. So it’s prior prior moving forward.
The 2017-2018’fafsa will use 2015 tax return data. You have no choice about that…none.
Is calgrant also going prior-prior?
Doesn’t Calgrant require both the income threshold AND financial need? If so…the FAFSA would determine financial need…and that uses prior prior.
But good question. What does the Calgrant website say?
The Calgrant question should probably be its own thread…rather than a high jack of this one.
I have created some FAFSA spreadsheets, you can see them here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1726777-fafsa-spreadsheet-p2.html
If you make too much for your kid to get need-based financial aid, and you are ONLY looking at them possibly getting merit aid and scholarships, is there any point to filling out FAFSA and CSS forms?
Some schools may require it. They’ll let you know if they do.
There are a couple of schools that give a grant JUST for filling out the FAFSA forms, and you’d need to fill it out for loans.
I have one that does require it for merit aid from the school and one that doesn’t require FAFSA but waits for it so if I’m not going to fill it out, I have to let them know.