<p>I just did an EFC calculator on the college board site. My families FM contribution is 51K, IM contribution is 47K.
My D has decided on 4 schools so far that she would like to apply to, all in the 45 - 51K range. 2 meet 100% of demonstrated need. They are all Profile schools as well.
I was wondering a few things:
Grandparents have a 529 in each of my children's name and will contribute 5000 per year
to their grandchildren's college educations. If we qualify for any FA at any of the schools
D may get into, would it be wiped out by the grandparent 529 (since at most we'd get
about 3-4K)?</p>
<p>With an EFC that is so high, will it hurt D's chance of admission if we submit FAFSA? Is
it better not to submit and just pay? Does it ever hurt to submit a FAFSA I guess is my
question?</p>
<p>I would like my kids to be able to take out money with an unsubsidized stafford loan, it
seems like a good way for them to build credit history. I know we need to do FAFSA in
order to access this. Can a person not apply for financial aid, but still fill out FAFSA and
apply for the loan?</p>
<p>This has been much debated. There are those (like me) who believe that it matters even at need blind schools and would never apply for aid if I knew I would not qualify for anything significant. Others believe need blind schools really don’t care.</p>
<p>The 529 will wipe out need. Also, your DD is highly likely to get the few thousand in a loan anyway. I would check the no aid box to give her the best shot. At schools that are need aware there’s no question applying for aid hurts.</p>
<p>Can you fill out a FAFSA, but not apply for financial aid on the Common App.? Just not check the financial aid box? Can the common app. be tailored at all? ie: check FA for the 2 need blind schools, but don’t check it for the need aware schools? Is taking out the unsub. Stafford considered financial aid? </p>
<p>I tend to agree with you, hmom5, that for the small amount of FA that we MIGHT qualify for, its probably not worth it to jeopardize admission. But, I would like my kids to build credit and contribute to their education and the Staff. Loan seems like a good start.
Also, we have 3 kids in HS years 2010,2013, and 2016, so we’ll have two years of overlap total. Wouldn’t we need to be filling out FAFSA in order to qualify for aid when DD and DS overlap in school year 2013-2014??</p>
<p>Yes, the 529 will impact the available aid at some schools.</p>
<p>No, I can’t see any detriment to your daughter’s admission chances if you submit the FAFSA. Colleges don’t turn down students because they think they may get more money from them.</p>
<p>Go ahead and fill out the financial aid forms. I can’t see any downside to doing so… other than the pain in the butt of completing them.</p>
<p>Also, you can submit the FAFSA even after you’ve been accepted. My daughter didn’t file her FAFSA for the 2008-09 academic year until August '08 because she decided in the summer to begin college that fall. Now clearly that was too late for any institutional aid, and too late for work-study at her school, but she was given a little in need-based state and federal grants, and the opportunity for Stafford loans if she wanted them. So, I would agree, you can file the FAFSA without applying to the college for financial aid. You can even do it after the admissions cycle is over.</p>
<p>The 529 issue is something that may vary from school to school. I know at my son’s college they say they will treat 529 funds owned by someone other than the parents or the student just like an outside scholarship. In their case, that means they would use that amount to reduce self-help (loans, workstudy) first, and any amount in excess of that would go to reduce institutional aid otherwise provided by the school.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is what if the student’s grandparents, in this case, only withdrew enough to cover the loans and/or workstudy, but reserved the rest for subsequent years? In that case the funds would not impact other aid being provided by the college, right? Or would they look at the balance of the 529 in total, and somehow divide that resource over 4 years, or whatever…</p>
<p>There is a question on the Profile form that asks about 529 or other funds held by people outside the immediate family for benefit of the student. What they do with that information would, I imagine, vary from school to school a bit.</p>
<p>This thread caught my attention because you have the same EFC that we did. Our situations were a little different though because we couldn’t afford the kind of tuition you are talking about even though our EFC was so high.</p>
<p>We had never heard that it would hurt our daughter’s chances of admittance if we applied for financial aid until after the application process was over and now we have heard it from several sources. I don’t know what is really true. I guess I think that HYP don’t take financial need into account but the other ones, I don’t know. Also it was never clear to me how that left us, we applied for financial aid but didn’t qualify for any, so what category did we fall into?</p>
<p>I’ll tell you what I think really could have helped our daughter other than not applying for financial aid and that would have been being able to go early decision. My daughter had one dream school and we didn’t realize until after the application process was over that this particular school fills up half of its class with early decision candidates. She went in the regular decision pool and got wait listed, which means that she was qualified to get in but they just didn’t have room. She might have gotten in if she could have applied early decision.</p>
<p>Ultimately we couldn’t have gone early decision anyway because we needed to be able to shop around for financial aid. But if you’re in a position where you won’t get aid but you can afford the school anyway early decision might be something for you to consider.</p>
<p>I can’t tell it you realize this or not but the FAFSA needs to be filled out every year. I think if there haven’t been any changes in circumstances then you can expect the same need based assistance that you got the previous year. But as circumstances change so does financial aid so once you have more than one kid in school you might qualify for need based assistance.</p>
<p>Remember that even at need-aware schools, it’s not a question of whether you applied for aid but how much aid you will need. A student who applies but does not qualify for aid or qualifies for very little is treated as a full pay. A student who is borderline but requires a lot of aid may be treated differently.</p>
<p>The college is concerned about its bottom line. If all you’re going to qualify for is federal loan money, there should be no consequence to filing the FAFSA and/or Profile.</p>
<p>^I’m not doubting your word, but how do you know? I was reading an article about Harvard’s financial woes in Vanity Fair and I kept thinking–their new aid policy is now a big problem for them, those who clearly will not need a cent for 4 years are going to be needed.</p>