Some of the schools my daughter applied to EA have a deadline of today for the FAFSA and CSS.
Our family income is around 320K. Is it correct to assume that we have absolutely no chance of getting any money? I’m assuming that’s the case, but I just want to be sure before I let this deadline pass. When I ran our EFC a few months back, it came to around 86K, and we’ll only have one child in college.
I’m guessing that I need to do the FAFSA in order to get loans and for my daughter to get Work Study. Is this true? Assuming this is all I’ll get, do I need to get the FAFSA and CSS done for this EA deadline?
I’m hoping the answer is no, or else I have some serious work to do over the next couple of hours 
Thanks in advance for any info.
Work study is a need based aid financial aid award. It is not likely that your DD will,qualify for work study of any kind with your income.
In terms of the federally funded student loans? Your daughter can take $5500 for her fresh,n year if you complete the FAFSA.
You can do that later if that is the only aid you want.
Check your college policy for awarding even merit aid. There are a small number of colleges that do require the financial aid forms be completed for even that.
But like I said…if you only want the Direct Loan…you can wait.
OK, that’s great news @thumper1. That’s what I figured, but I called one of the schools and they said I should do it early because they could run out of money. I don’t think the girl understood my question, though. That’s a bummer about work study.
You can work in college without getting a work study job.
@thumper1, there’s no way we’re going to get grant money with that income, right? Even with a mountain of debt and practically negative cash flow every month? I think I asked that on here a while back, and people said that the CSS might give a better picture of our financial situation. But we don’t have any unusual circumstances - just a mountain of debt built up over years.
Merit aid will be awarded irrespective of income. But with that income (unless you have a boatload of children) you won’t be getting any grants based on your finances.
College financial aid awards do not consider your consumer debt. They rely mostly on your income and assets to make the need based award determinations.
With Over $300,000incime, it’s highly unlikely you will see ny need based aid at all…anywhere with one student in college. You say you have NO special circumstances…just debt. That is not something the college will consider.