I’ve heard that if you submit fafsa and are easily able to pay for college then some schools still give them money. True or not?
Not true
Not financial aid like Pell grants. You can take federal student loans.
Schools give merit aid, even to wealthy people. That’s not need based aid.
And some schools give a grant just for filing FAFSA. Know the rules at your school.
@twoinanddone says ‘yes’, @mom2collegekids says ‘no’. Can anyone clarify?
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Yeah, not true… it can’t hurt to fill one out, especially if you’re applying to expensive private schools. A lot of top universities combine FAFSA and CSS profile and use their own formula for aid (meaning your FAFSA EFC means nothing to them), so you never know if you’ll get money if you’re upper middle class.
There are a couple…note…a couple…of colleges that give everyone who files a fafsa a small amount of money. That is true.
To @will999 what is “rich people” to you?
Need based aid is based on your parent income and assets. Some schools are quite generous awarding need based aid to students with family income above $180,000 a year. These schools use the CSS Profile to determine your eligibility for institutional need based aid…not the fafsa.
Notable exceptions…
University of Chicago is generous, uses the fafsa and a very short form of their own. They do not require the Profile or non-custodial parent information.
Princeton uses the fafsa and the Princeton Financial aid application form. The Princeton form is very much
Ike the Profile in terms if the information it asks.
The FAFSA is a need based application that tells if you qualify for a federal Pell grant. You can earn too much to qualify for Pell but still get need based aid if the college offers their own scholarships. Some schools offer merit as well, so the answer may be either yes or no depending on which school you’re talking about.
Does it matter if the school YOU are going to doesn’t have the policy to give aid to everyone? There are a handful that give a small grant for filling out FAFSA by their deadline (not FAFSA deadline, school’s deadline). There are a few schools that seem to give a grant to everyone who applies, and those may require the FAFSA. There are quite a few schools that require the FAFSA to get any aid at all, including merit aid, so at those schools everyone needs to file the FAFSA even if they don’t have financial need. And there are many many more who have FAFSA filers who get nothing in aid.
What is the policy at the school(s) you are interested in? If you are unsure, file.
I think the answer is if you define rich as, say $500k a year, very few schools will give you any aid. But if you want to borrow, they still are filled out.
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you submit fafsa and are easily able to pay for college then some schools still give them money. True or not?
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If you’re talking about need-based aid, then no, you will not get money.
If you’re talking about MERIT scholarships that really have nothing to do with FAFSA, then the answer is maybe.
If you’re talking about the very few schools that will give everyone a very small award for filling out FAFSA, then yes. A few schools give every student a small award for filling it out. Very very few schools do this. I’ve only heard of one school.
FAFSA is an app for FEDERAL aid. If your EFC is about about 6000, then you will not receive a federal grant no matter what.
Some schools DO use the fafsa info to determine need based aid. Most of these schools are not particularly generous.
What do you call “rich people”? To be honest, that would define the answer to your question for colleges…YMMV.
The FAFSA is free is does not take a huge amount of time to complete. I always recommend that families submit it even if they know they will not qualify for “need” based aid. There are many lower tier schools that use financial information to award “merit aid”. Whether or the reasons are to improve discount rate, future gift prospects, or some other reason they will never admit. Is 1 or 2 hours of your time worth the chance at a couple thousand dollars? I tend to say yes.
On the other hand if you are talking about schools that meet need, elite privates, or competitive publics then don’t waste your time.
Those schools probably use the Profile to award need based financial aid.
Since we have NO IDEA what the OP means by “rich”, we have NO IDEA whether he would or wouldn’t qualify for institutional need based aid. Sorry…not enough information.