There is a line in the CSS Profile that asks you to “Enter the amount your parents think they will be able to pay.”
We have had a few discussions about this line. The links are listed below. If you read through them, you will find that no one has a good answer to this question. We are all guessing how or if this information is used by the schools. The consensus is to put a lower number than you can pay. Our family usually puts less than half of our EFC. Others put their EFC or the cost of an in state school.
This site is most easily searched with google. I found the following links by googling “Enter the amount your parents think they will be able to pay”
I think what you should put in there depends on whether the admissions process is need blind or need aware. If it’s need blind, I would definitely put down a lower value. If it’s need aware, I would just put down an honest answer.
Don’t put in more than you can afford. I put in a ridiculously low number, a small fraction of our Fafsa EFC. But I could defend it, if needed. (Per what they look at, not some random sad tale.)
All our awards came out where they should (a percentage higher than that Fafsa EFC.). Both kids went to a need aware.
YMMV
I also entered a fraction of my EFC. In the explanation portion, you can explain your current or anticipated financial condition by listing any anticipated hardships.
Here is the official instruction - Do not include money you plan to borrow.
“Help SR-160A
Give the best estimate of the amount of money that your parents plan to pay toward your 2016-17 college expenses from income and assets. College expenses include tuition and fees, books and supplies, room and board, transportation, and personal expenses. Do not include money from your noncustodial parent or amounts your parents plan to borrow.”
Our best estimate ended up being 50% of what they think we can pay.
If all of our children attend private colleges, we will have no equity in our house and we have no savings.
We have elderly parents to take care of and health care bills, but CSS Profile and my son’s college don’t care (and we could document everything).
Please do not put any time into trying to put a “real” number into that box. Be assured it will be ignored, and that the box with “extenuating circumstances” will be ignored.
As for EFC, we are paying 8K more than our EFC, so the school is giving 80% of need.
rhandco - what you think you can afford, and what universities determine your “need” to be are entirely different things. Universities will not consider the expenses for elderly parents. You can enter whatever you feel like but they universities will calculate your “need” based on their institutional methodology. Be prepared for a shock.
I am not so sure that ignoring that question is a good idea. Depending on the College you apply to, it might make a difference. One of my daughters school completely ignored the number we entered ( in-State Public), the other school (a top 5 private School) didn’t and cut our EFC in half.
Someone posted here that her ex husband did not understand the process and despite him having no money (and not contributing to support) put down a number double their EFC. Mom was the one mostly paying for college. The full need Top 30 college took him at his word and provided need accordingly (mom found this out when appealing since the parents fill out forms separately). I believe D ended up at a state college in Florida. I think putting a lower number cannot hurt you but a higher number obviously is not a good idea.
Has anyone else experienced what @anitram posted in #9? Child #1 is applying ED to a top LAC that does not offer any merit aid, but meets full need. However, based on the NPC numbers we ran, we will clearly be full pay, so we were not going to bother filling out the FAFSA and CSS Profile, especially after reading about how difficult the CSS is. But we fall in the same category as many others where full pay would really be stretching it for us, especially if we want to have anything left over for child #2. Is there any conceivable scenario where your EFC could get lowered that might make it worth our while to fill out the financial aid forms?
Our school district provided a parents night to inform us about FAFSA filing and PHEAA (Pennsylvania) filing. We were told to file both regardless of our income. When we visited one of the colleges our daughter applied to and was accepted at, imagine my surprise when they asked if we filed the FAFSA. We said yes and that upped her aid by $1000 which does not have to be repaid. So I say file the FAFSA and the CSS if any of your schools use that. It only took me 30 minutes total to file both and we gained $1000.
If you enter an amount lower than your EFC will they deny admission because they think you can’t afford it?
Last year my D applied to CMU and we put $40K on this line. She was waitlisted. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, because of course we would have scraped up the rest if she had gotten in with little to no aid.
@craspedia I wonder about this too. I think it’s the main crux of the question. They must be asking for some financial reason. If we know we aren’t going to get need based aid based on NPC, then I think we are just going to put full price. Putting something lower isn’t going to make the school cough up money for us. Right?
We put the cost of our in state schools ($22,000) and my daughter was accepted to all of her profile schools except for one, where she was waitlisted. Our EFC was/is much higher than $22,000.
Are you sure this was the reason @anitram ? Colleges have varying formulas to determine awarding of THEIR need based aid. It is very possible,that the school that didn’t give you as much money wouldn’t have given you much money anyway.