<p>My son did not receive any financial aid from the University he would like to attend except a federal loan and work study. After reading the threads six months too late, I learned the school is notorious for not giving much in aid although it reports it has a high endowment. Our FAFSA EFC is more than the amount showing on the CSS Profile. The Financial Aid Office claims that it meets 100% need. It also claims that if you are interested in federal money only to complete the FAFSA, but if you are interested in grant money from the school, you must complete the CSS Profile. I spoke with the Financial Aid Officer to find out why my son was not awarded grant money if the CSS Profile is showing we have a need. The response was that if the FAFSA is higher than the Profile, than the school by federal law, must default to the higher FAFSA amount when awarding its own aid. This does not make any sense to me. Does anyone know whether there is such a federal law which requires a school to default to the FAFSA EFC if it is higher?</p>
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I don’t know the specific laws, but I’m going to say no from experience. My FAFSA didn’t give a good picture of my family’s financial situation, and so had an EFC of several thousand dollars, which we couldn’t pay. However, CSS gave more information, and IDOC even more, and I ended up with a much smaller EFC than what the FAFSA said at the one school I got into that meets full need.</p>
<p>So no, I don’t think that’s true. A private school can do what it wants with its own aid.</p>
<p>I 'm not sure what the OP is saying here. The FAFSA EFC is higher than the PROFILE EFC in her case. So if the school defaults to the FAFSA EFC, then the student would get full FAFSA need met, would s/he not? What is the FAFSA EFC in this case, and what awards were given? </p>
<p>What I suspect happened here is that the FAFSA EFC was met fully with Federal options, the Stafford loans and work study. Since the need was met with those options, there was no reason for the college to go into its own funds. The college might have done so if all federal resources were depleted or if the PROFILE figure exceed the FAFSA figure in terms of need, so that the amount had to come from the college’s own coffers.</p>
<p>cptofthehous, our FAFSA showed an EFC of 50k and the Profile showed an EFC of 30k. The school cost is 56k, so the school gave a combination of federal loan and work study of 6k. They said although the Profile is showing an EFC of 30k, they cannot give university grant money because of the high FAFSA amount. The reason being, federal law requires them to default to the FAFSA. It seems to me a private university should be able to give out whatever it wishes, especially if it states it will meet 100% need based on the institutional method. I am trying to find out the particular federal law which prohibits them from using the Profile. What was the point of me paying $16 to have the Profile sent.</p>
<p>If that were true, then the CSS Profile would be utterly useless. Federal aid is dependent upon the FAFSA; university aid is dependent on all the forms they have you send them.</p>
<p>Sounds like they just want to give the least aid. If the CSS Profile had you with a higher EFC than the FAFSA, I’m sure they would have not problem going off of that instead.</p>
<p>That isn’t the case. What happens in your situation is that the school has a system in place where it is required to give you all of the Federal aid it can first. Once it does that, it cannot give you school funds because then, your federal aid has to be taken away. What the school has to do, but it has made internal rules so that they cannot do this, is basically fund your entire need with school funds, making you ineligible for any Federal aid. </p>
<p>What the school did is meet your $6K FAFSA need first by giving your student a subsidized loan and workstudy. You are now at full need met according to government rules, so any additional aid with the first dollar will come off of the aid given. You are not allowed to get the subsidized loan or workstudy if you are getting other aid since you will then go over the federal need guidelines.</p>
<p>Ask to talk to the financial aid officer in charge and explain this situation. Other colleges deal with this by simply making exception to their internal rules. They are right in that they cannot give you the Federal subsidized loans/workstudy AND meet your PROFILE need. What they can do, is give you the PROFILE need and exempt you from the federal items, or just stack their need on top of the federal items and let them just be absorbed by the college funds so that the federal outlay is zero. Someone is being really stupid here, I think.</p>
<p>It is rare that PROFILE need come up higher than FAFSA, especially that much. Out of curiousity, do you know how this happened? Do you have children in private schools that this college is taking into account?</p>
<p>I have three kids in private school. I quess we are screwed. It’s a shame because my son really wants to go to this school, and finances prohibit this from happening. I have filed an appeal with the school and after receiving the appeal decision, again contacted the school but to no avail. I don’t know what else to do.</p>
<p>Did you talk to the director of financial aid? Also talk to admissions and explain the situation. Because a school can make any rules it wants in terms of its internal fin aid distributions of its own money, ultimately that this school has this situation for the rare times when a PROFILE EFC exceeds a FAFSA one, they can do what they want. But point out what is happening here to admissions and to the head of financial aid.</p>
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How do you know it’s so rare? It was the case with my family, and I would think it would be the case with anyone with below average assets (half of people are below average?).</p>
<p>It says so on a number of sites that it is rare. What does PROFILE treat more generously than FAFSA? The only thing that I can come up with is the kids in private K-12 school, and kids in special needs programs.</p>
<p>Sorry, I just caught my error. The higher the EFC, the lower the need. What I meant to say is that it is rare that anyone would get a higher need through PROFILE than through FAFSA, not EFC which is the contribution.</p>
<p>Not really… It asks about medical debt, home equity, mortgage. If you have a significant amount of medical debt, have a mortgage, and your home is worth less than it used to be, I would expect the Profile to produce a lower EFC.</p>
<p>It asks about a lot of things but does not necessary make positive adjustment for them. For instance, primary home ownership questions are there so that your home equity amount can be used as an asset. FAFSA does not include any home equity of a primary home. As for medical bills and expenses, you can often get a FAFSA adjustment for them. If a PROFILE school takes them into consideration, the fin aid office will make a FAFSA adjustment, which their are allowed to do. Fin aid officers love to get that FAFSA EFC as low as possible because any federal funds the applicant can get means less funds that the school has to give to meet need as close as they can. </p>
<p>PROFILE does produce a higher EFC most of the time by far. That is a fact. The whole reason that there is a PROFILE is to get additional information on assets and income that FAFSA does not include so that the colleges can tap into them. </p>
<p>Just thought of another PROFILE item that might not be on FAFSA, and cannot be adjusted on FAFSA which are loans that a parent may be paying for education. </p>
<p>How did you get a lower need number from PROFILE, BillyMC? How did the school handle it, in terms of integrating the awards with the federal money? This might be of interest to the OP as an example s/he might be able to use for her school in terms of methodology. </p>
<p>The way most schools meet need is that they use all of the Federal/state monies they can first and then layer on the school funds. Because the FAFSA EFC does tend to be lower than the PROFILE, this sort of situation that the OP has does not tend to happen often.</p>
<p>Our FAFSA EFC is always higher than our Profile family contribution, and yes, federal law does say that in this situation, <em>if the school gives the student any Federal aid</em> they must use the higher FM (FAFSA) EFC. If the school chooses to use the lower IM contirbution, then the package must consist of only institutional funds, with no Fed loans or Fed work/study. The situation is discussed in these threads:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1063575-profile-contribution-less-than-fafsa.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1063575-profile-contribution-less-than-fafsa.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1065423-what-does-css-profile-do-does-lower-amount-aid-you-get.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1065423-what-does-css-profile-do-does-lower-amount-aid-you-get.html</a></p>
<p>So the college that the OP is dealing with did not finish the statement. What can be done is that the mealy federal loan and workstudy can be removed so that the student can get $20k of school funds.</p>
<p>yep, cpt, the school could do that. Schools, such as Amherst (see the other linked threads), who truly believe that the Institutional Methodology (or an adaptation thereof) gives the best picture of a family’s financial strength apply that methodology to ALL students, even those whose FM EFC is higher, by giving institutional-only aid packages where necessary. Others don’t really put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and weasel out by going with the higher EFC for those families who end up with a higher FM EFC.</p>
<p>Rice had our EFC at 52 and we appealed and it was brought down to 47 (straight from the fafsa). Williams had the same information (fafsa, css, idoc) and they assessed our need at 37.</p>
<p>It is beyond me how the two schools who both meet 100% need determined what our need was. It looked to us that Rice just looked at the fafsa (even though they ask for everything else). Williams, when I inquired, said they use an “institutional formula” and that is what they came up with for our family. I was afraid to continue probing what was a much better efc. </p>
<p>And, this is a dumb question but where on the CSS do you see what the family’s need is calculated at? My husband did the form but can I go in and see that?</p>
<p>HI - I had the same question. I know what my FAFSA EFC is, how do I know what my PROFILE EFC is?</p>
<p>It is not on the Profile itself. I was told the amount of need demonstrated on the Profile by the financial aid officer. He acknowledged the Profile more accurately reflected our demonstrated need, but nevertheless stated they had to default to the higher FAFSA amount. If I had known this from the beginning, I could have saved my money in submitting the CSS Profile. A hard lesson learned from one who is putting our first through college. I will be better informed and prepared for our other children, and only have them apply to schools that truly meet demonstated need (read between the lines of the school literature and ask key questions of financial aid office before applying). I quess a thread should be started listing the colleges, if one hasn’t already been started, that truly fail to meet demonstrated need, so that others can stay away if they are within a certain income bracket. First on the list Boston College.</p>
<p>Before you posted the school name I was going to suggest you see if they had pledged at
[Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)
But I notice BC has not been listed at this site. It may help future applicants to review the site for the schools they are applying to and see what promises thay have made. Many of the schools on this site have pledged to meet IM computed aid. My D1 is at one such school where my IM EFC was lower than her FAFSA EFC and they met the lower EFC 100%. However they did initially award Work Study in her package despite using the lower CSS EFC. The work study was removed when she was awarded outside scholarships resulting in a reduction in need. I also had an issue in year 2 when they assumed the outside scholarships were continuing and when corrected massively changed my EFC - the FA officer said they only had to meet the FAFSA EFC - I went to the Director of FA and got that corrected. If you have more children I would make sure you ask the FA officer how additional children in college will affect future FA - ask for both the oldest and each school the next child applies to as well.</p>