We are in this wonderful group were NPC shows that we are full pay, but in fact we will have to postpone our retirement indefinitely if we have to pay for a private school. Our DD will probably be offered merit aid if she goes to the lesser ranked school but will get nothing at the top schools.
Do we have to file FAFSA? Is FAFSA just for need based aid? Will our DD be able to get work study if she doesn’t qualify for a need base?
You are in a common situation.
You aren’t required to file a FAFSA but if you want any of the following Federal Aid you will need to: work/study, student direct loan, parent plus loan.
Also a few schools require that you file FAFSA to get merit aid from them. Also some schools require you file a FAFSA the first year or you can’t get aid in later years from them, should unemployment or something occur, although you can always get the federal portion.
Work/study is a way for the federal govt to reimburse schools for jobs students do for pay. So some jobs are only for work/study students. However some privates have so many jobs available you can just apply for them when you get there. My kid’s school had so many jobs available that the school just paid them directly for, no work/study allocation needed. To get a federal work study allocation you have to have need, I believe.
Need = COA - EFC
Federal student loans require FAFSA
What is this ‘middle class family’ income amount of which you speak?
We filed the fafsa because in the case of BOTH of our kids, the colleges to which they matriculated required it even for merit aid recipients.
If you don’t want to postpone your retirement indefinitely, look for merit aid for your student and/or more affordable colleges. No one is required to attend a private, unaffordable university.
You can start by reading all of the links in this thread:
@Madison85 we are talking about double income family of two professionals. DD is our youngest child and the only one in college at the time.
@BrownParent i am trying to determine if it is beneficial for us to file FAFSA. I know that if we do, all the schools on the list will be able to see the other schools she is applying to. If we both continue working at the same rate as now, we will not want for her to get loans. But she would need to work to help us with the bill.
@thumper1 we are looking at at different options. She will be applying to a wide range of school. Hopefully she will make NM in California and gets at least half tuition off at USC. We also have UCs here, but those became very unpredictable lately.
She is a strong applicant, but it is so many of those. We just want to see if she gets into the lottery school how we will be able to pay.
Full pay at private schools results when your middle income family uses NPCs? What schools are these?
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Will our DD be able to get work study if she doesn’t qualify for a need base?
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No, your D will not be able to get work-study. WS is a federal need-based aid. Only given to those with need.
What is your EFC?
What is your goal net cost for college after merit scholarships?
What is your D’s major and career goal? Only 1 or 2 careers (usually Wall Street stuff) requires a top school education.
We are a middle class family with 2 son’s in college. I still file the FASFA each year knowing that all we will get as FA will be Parent Plus loans and Stafford loans for my son’s. These loans are available to us if needed but have no plans to utilize them as of yet.
Looks like your DD will make NMSF since the Calif cutoff was 222 and your DD scored a few pts above that…and the highest national cutoff ever has been 224.
Lots of big merit offers for NMF.
The very vast majority of colleges are need blind for admissions…meaning the admissions office doesn’t even know you applied for financial aid…and it’s not considered when you apply. Even for need aware schools, the admissions office doesn’t see your FAFSA…they see your level of need.
Admissions and financial,aid are not in the same room. And even if they were…are you thinking the adcoms have the time to go to financial aid and check each applicant’s FAFSA to see where else they sent the FAFSA?
Plus, many kids send the FAFSA to colleges and never complete admission applications to the schools. What is listed on the FAFSA in terms of colleges has no relationship to where the student actually applies in some cases.
If you are THAT concerned…you know you can submit the FAFSA to one school at a time…wait until it processes and then delete the first school and submit to the next school…continuing until you have done them all.
But really…I think your concern about the adcoms seeing the list of schools on your FAFSA is unfounded.
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. I know that if we do, all the schools on the list will be able to see the other schools she is applying to. If we both continue working at the same rate as now, we will not want for her to get loans. But she would need to work to help us with the bill.
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Since you won’t qualify for aid, why would you submit? For loans only, you could submit after app decisions are made.
@mom2collegekids We hope she does. If she does, USC will be our first choice (and UCs, but this is a different story). I want to see what our financial options are in the unlikely event if she will get into Stanford or Caltech. At our current financial situation we will be able to pay for her private school, but it will eat up the biggest part of our income. She has part time job now and brings home about 1K per month. We expect her to continue this employment and add something else to it to cover some part of her expense.
@thumper1 How do you know when FAFSA for the particular school is processed? She will be applying to only two EA schools-Caltech and MIT and then to USC later and the rest to follow. Also, if she does make NM, she will probably apply to OU as a safety school since they offer a wonderful NM package.
@mom2collegekids That is actually was my original question. Do we have to submit FAFSA or not? We need her to have WS or any other job to help us pay for her college. Also if something happen to our employment and we will not be able to continue to pay for her college, we need a back up plan.
You can’t file the FAFSA until after Jan 1 anyway, so the EA schools will not have it when considering admissions (although they will have the CSS?). Financial aid for Stanford is pretty clear now, isn’t it? Under $65k, full ride. Under $125k(?) there is a family contribution. Above that, I think you don’t get much. Use the calculators.
I think MIT knows that you are applying to CalTech and Stanford and USC and …everyone does. These schools are no one’s safeties, so they aren’t worried about ruining their yields.
You don’t need to submit FAFSA for your D to get a job on campus. But she won’t be eligible for specific jobs which are earmarked for WS recipients. So if you are eligible for WS you should file. And if you need a back-up plan you should file. And her colleges aren’t going to bother seeing where else she applied.
Unless your finances are complicated by owning a business or some complex real estate assets, you should be able to get a “back of the envelope” calculation of your aid right now. It either works for you or it doesn’t. If you check the MIT calculator for example- you’ll see pretty quickly if you’re talking aid or not. They give zero merit aid so your D’s stats won’t complicate the “preferential packaging” picture as it would at some other schools.
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We need her to have WS or any other job to help us pay for her college.
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Your FAFSA EFC will be too high to work study.
Even if Stanford determines that she qualifies for “some aid,” that will not be federal aid (like work study).
However, she can try to get a non-WS job on campus.
However, if you do apply for aid at S or similar, then you’ll have to submit FAFSA as well as CSS profile.
She has part time job now and brings home about 1K per month. We expect her to continue this employment and add something else to it to cover some part of her expense.
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Her earnings are also going to bump up your “family contribution” since her earnings will have a harsher calculation. What is she doing with her earnings now? If she has savings then that will also have a harsh calculation.
How will she be able to continue that job once she’s in college? or is it a job that she does from home?
This is a freelance position. She can do it online from anywhere. All her current earnings go to her bank account. This year she picked up a tab for AP testing (6APs, gifts and some other things) but the rest is in her savings account.
Well, run the Stanford NPC and the others to see how your income, your savings, your DD’s likely earnings for 2015, and her likely savings next January/Feb…and see what the results will be.
A little late but we were full pay at D’s school and filed FAFSA so she could get a student loan (her part of the contribution).