<p>Someone posted on this forum that FAFSA schools don't meet full need. Is that a generalization or fact?</p>
<p>We have never applied to a school that did anything other than FAFSA so didn't realize there were other routes to financial aid. </p>
<p>What makes schools choose FAfSA over something else?</p>
<p>It depends on school. FAFSA is just a tool to give schools an idea of who needs financial assistance, it is not a guarantee that they will give it to you. Some schools use CSS. The only ones we applied to that used CSS were private schools. The one school that guaranteed to meet full need was CSS school, but again it varies.</p>
<p>FAFSA is free for all parties involved, I think. Schools can choose to use the CSS Profile, but I imagine CB charges schools as well as applicants for it. However, the CSS is far more detailed-- which makes sense if a school is going to meet full need, they’re going to want to pretty narrowly define ‘need.’</p>
<p>Almost all colleges participate in federal funding and use FAFSA. FAFSA is the form that allows schools to award federal fund and federal loans to students so almost all colleges use FAFSA. Some private colleges also use another financial aid form to distribute “their” money, it is called the College Board Profile, but out of the 4000 or so colleges and unis under 500 use Profile. There are probably thousands of colleges that utilize FAFSA that don’t meet need.</p>
<p>The “other routes” to financial aid are scholarships and what are called merit awards directly from the college that are offered either because of true “merit” - grades and SAT or ACT scores - or are discounts on the tuition to attract the student. Read the financial aid pages for the college website carefully (for the one attending or if undecided for all of them.)</p>
<p>Some schools also have their own financial aid form. Princeton, for example, meets full need. It uses it’s own form (which collects similar financial data to the CSS Profile) and the FAFSA.</p>
<p>There is only one school that supposedly guarantees to meet full need for all students that uses the FAFSA only…and that is Chapman University. </p>
<p>I believe there are about 50 colleges that guarantee to meet full need of all accepted students as the school calculates that need to be. These schools (with the exception of Princeton) use the CSS Profile to determine eligibility for their institutional need based aid.</p>
<p>*We have never applied to a school that did anything other than FAFSA so didn’t realize there were other routes to financial aid. </p>
<p>What makes schools choose FAfSA over something else?*</p>
<p>Other routes to FA? </p>
<p>some schools have “deep pockets” and can give out more aid, so they use CSS Profile to really find out who needs lots of aid. Schools that use CSS Profile ALSO use FAFSA (for fed aid).</p>
<p>FAFSA is just a federal app for federal aid. Federal aid isn’t much…Pell Grants, loans, WS, etc. </p>
<p>Schools that use FAFSA usually don’t have much of their own aid to give out. they usually only can give out Federal aid, which isn’t much. </p>
<p>FAFSA EFC is a federal number. Schools don’t have to do anything with that number except to see if you qualfy for federal aid. </p>
<p>Your question about choosing FAFSA over something else suggests that some add’l clarification is needed.</p>
<p>A school that uses FAFSA won’t magically have more money to give away if it uses CSS Profile. </p>
<p>Imagine that you own a school that has no money of its own to give away. So, your students use FAFSA to see if they qualify for any federal aid (which isn’t much). Your students are gapped and must pay for most of the costs themselves. If your students filled out CSS Profile that wouldn’t mean that magically your school’s bank accounts would suddenly have more money to give away.</p>
<p>Someone posted on this forum that FAFSA schools don’t meet full need. Is that a generalization or fact?</p>
<p>It’s virtually a fact. I think there are only a couple of FAFSA only schools that promise to meet need.</p>
<p>However, that doesn’t mean that your need won’t be met. If you have a small amount of need, then your need will be met with a student loan. However, if you have LOTS of need (low EFC) then likely you will be gapped.</p>
<p>That said, I see that you’re in Calif. If your child is accepted to a UC school and you have an income less than $80k and a lowish EFC, then your child qualifies for Blue and Gold. That means that with Cal Grants, UC grants, and/or Pell Grants, the tuition/fees will get covered. Loans will be given to cover some of the room, board and books. The gap could be small. UCs don’t promise to meet need.</p>
<p>Thumper, you must be thinking of a different school than Chapman. They are far from meeting full need - according to the most recent freshman stats they met only 49% of need on average.</p>
<p>Bob…for awhile, Chapman used to say that it “meets need”. I don’t know if it’s still saying that or not. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t meet need.</p>
<p>I think the OP is confused when she says, “routes to financial aid”, as if there are different routes to different “pots of gold”. CSS Profile isn’t its own source of money. It’s just a “common app” (so to speak) that a school uses if the school happens to have “deep pockets” and wants to use that info to determine how much aid it should give a student. </p>
<p>A FAFSA-only school generally does not have much of its own money to put in aid pkgs so they don’t need to use CSS Profile. To them, CSS is unnecessary since having more information about a family’s finances is meaningless to them because the school doesn’t have more money to give out. FAFSA only schools tend to rely heavily on limited fed and state aid and the info from FAFSA or strict income thresholds are enough info for them.</p>
<p>Bob…then their policies at Chapman have changed. If Chapman no longer meets full need, then there are NO FAFSA only schools that guarantee to meet full need for ALL accepted students.</p>