DS20 will not qualify for any need based financial aid based on the various NPC’s that we run. We attended a counselling session at his school and they recommended that you should still fill out the FAFSA form at least in the first because certain schools may need it for scholarships. I am not sure if this would actually help him. The only scholarship that he may get is NMF and I don’t think they require FAFSA. Any help would be welcome here?
We chose not to complete the FAFSA. We knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we qualified for $0 and any scholarship that required the FAFSA and had a need component, would have meant no $ for our D.
D got plenty of merit offers without the FAFSA.
If you are close to qualifying though, it might be worth completing.
Some schools require the FAFSA be filled out even for merit scholarships. I would just fill it out.
When my S attended Marquette it was required of kids who applied for merit $. The schools want to ensure that kids getting merit (which is from schools pocketbook) are not overlooking federal financial aid.
Thank you all for your response. Maybe we need to look at each school he is applying and see if they would need FAFSA for merit based scholarships.
Maybe quicker to just fill it out. 
It took me maybe 30 minutes tops and you can send it to up to 10 schools.
There are outside scholarship s that may require FAFSA. Also if your student wants to take the Direct Loan that he pretty much automatically qualifies to get, he needs FAFSA. If you decide to take the parent loan, you need the FAFSA.
I have also heard it said but cannot confirm or name schools, but at some schools if you do not file for financial aid or have the FAFSA completed, you cannot get aid in subsequent years. I do not know how this limitation might work.
Thanks all for the response. We are fortunate enough that he won’t need any loans.
Is there any downside to filling out FAFSA?
It takes time to collect your numbers and fill it out. Ditto for the kid’s time.
You might be flagged for verification and need to put a bit more time into it.
If you have some big financial secrets that you are keeping from your kid that your kid might find out in the process.
That’s about it for downsides.
Three reasons for someone in your situation to file:
- Some of the colleges/universities on the list require it for consideration for merit aid.
- You want your kid to be able to access the federal student loans.
- One or more of the colleges/universities on the list require it as a freshman in order to be considered for any need-based aid in future years. Yup those places exist. My Alma Mater used to be, and possibly still is, one of them.
If you don’t care at all about merit aid, and you have enough money safely stashed so the other two situations don’t affect your kid’s choice, then celebrate that you and your kid have freed up the time you would have needed to complete the FAFSA.