FAFSA prior-prior year change and CSS Profile

[OHMomof2]

Of interest perhaps, from NACAC annual conference notes compiled by collegewise.

There was a brilliant question/comment made at the end of the session:
• “PPY is the new Federal method, but colleges can continue to use PY for their internal

institutional awards. Won’t this just confuse everybody?”
• There was a College Board rep there (remember, they run Profile, the other financial aid
instrument used by almost all private colleges) and she said that CB was in consultation with its
member colleges about whether Profile would move from PY to PPY. The panel members had a

highly intelligent response that was basically, “We are in a competitive business and thre’s no

way we want to lose a kid because we have to wait for PY when our competitors are using PPY.

You should expect us to all adopt PPY internally because waiting is very bad for us.”
• Like I said, a very good and open session.

(PY is prior year, PPY is prior prior year. Seriously.)

https://collegewise.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Collegewise-Lessons-Learned-NACAC-2015.pdf - begins on page 12.

[OHMomof2]

Doc also says FAFSA will be available Oct 1 2016 instead of January 1 2017.

PPY stands for Prior Prior Year and is a recent policy change that will permit

families to use an earlier tax return when completing FAFSA (free application for federal student
aid). The reason it is significant is it means that families can file a completed FAFSA form much

earlier in the admissions cycle (eg October of the Senior year) rather than waiting until March or

even April of the Senior year.

@thumper - I wonder if the word “permit families to use” might mean families can choose to use it or not?

[billcsho]

That is basically the way ED/EA applicants for CSS profile schools.

[LKnomad]

I was at the NACAC FAFSA session. (Missed the one on CSS Profile). The impression I got was there would not be a choice of years for FAFSA. The Dep of Ed rep said that 2015 would be used twice and that the FAFSA would use the data retrieval tool from the IRS once the earlier FAFSA option starts.

That was just the impression I got from listening.

[thumper1]

That is basically the way ED/EA applicants for CSS profile schools

Not at my kids’ colleges. Both applied EA to,several schools. Both completed the Profile by November 1. In all cases, for the schools my kids applied to…we were told specifically to estimate well for the full tax year PY…and not to use PPY unless there was no change in income at all.