I have extenuating circumstances that makes my family income seem much higher than it actually is. My brother is currently attending a top tier university that is over $60,000 a year and I am also looking at similar institutions. I have filled out my FAFSA but my expected aid is not enough for our family to afford four years at a top institution (eight counting my brother). If I did not qualify for much aid through FAFSA, would it even be worth my time to fill out and submit the CSS? Would I have a better chance applying for aid from the institution rather than the government?
The federal gov’t gives very limited aid - <$6K in a Pell Grant for very low income and $5500 loan for freshman. All other real aid comes from the state or the college. Talk to the college FA office about your particulars.
123…when you fill out the CSS Profile, you ARE applying for aid from the institution. If your school requires the FAFSA and the Profile, you need to do both.
I know @thumper1 but I am wondering if it would be worthwhile to fill out the CSS if I didn’t receive much aid through the government. Does this mean that I also will not receive much aid through the institution? Do they generally judge need the same way?
If your FAFSA EFC exceeds the cost of attendance…maybe not worthwhile to do the Profile.
But it’s hard to really give you advice without knowing the colleges. There are some schools that give need based institutional aid to families with incomes in the $180,000 a year range. If your school is one of those, and your income is below that, it is absolutely worth filling out that Profile.
The federally funded need based aid is a Pell Grant of $5730 and a Direct Loan of $5500. Institutional,aid far exceeds those numbers. That federally funded need based aid is really for very low income families.
Without more info, it is impossible to tell you what to do.
Did you run the Net Price Calculators on the college websites? Did they show you would be eligible for aid? Start there.
@thumper1 thank you so much for all of your help and clarification. I will check out the net price calculators now!
One thing to consider…you say your family has an extenuating circumstance making your income seem higher? The NPC will not take that into consideration and will use the actual higher income. The college actually might as well.
If you have self employed parents, parents who own a business, own rental properties, or parents are divorced, the NPC might not be accurate.
ETA…it looks like you are applying to Duke and Wash U. Is your FAFSA EFC higher than the cost of attending those schools? If not, do the Profile.
?? This isn’t your parent’s first rodeo, you should see what your brother is getting from the fed and the school and it will clue you in. Full Pell is 5,750. Full college aid is like 60,000. Would you pass up potential for that because fed aid is smaller?
Is the extenuating circumstance that your brother attends a $60k/year college, or something else?
@madison85 @BrownParent We actually used to live overseas and just moved back so there are odd things with our taxes and other random costs. We did not even bother applying for federal or institutional aid last year because the taxes and other costs showed as income even though they were paid by the company. It sounds like you are saying that institutions generally give much larger sums of aid, so regardless of the FAFSA, I should definitely fill out the CSS profile. Thanks for the help!
As a general rule, you will have to pay your EFC at very least, except for some of the most generous schools possibly. So if that EFC is coming out as more than the COA of your schools, it is highly unlikely you get any aid. Will there be 2 of you in college next year?
So, your parent had additional income on his/her tax return because his or her employer reimbursed personal expenses (and possibly a gross up too of tax on these expenses, AND your parent possibly had the almost $100k subtraction for foreign earned income exclusion) …and you are describing this as the income appeared much higher than it really is… unless the reimbursements were more than the $100k foreign earned income exclusion, wouldn’t income be lower rather than higher than normal?
If you care to share, what was the inflated income number as compared to what it would be normally?
(This reminds me of pink997, the high school junior whose dad had 6-figure income, private school for 3 kids mostly paid by employer, the foreign earned income exclusion, and ended up with a projected Pell grant situation).