<p>Please help settle a disagreement I am having with my husband. </p>
<p>The CSS asks how much the family expects to be able to contribute. I want to put a realistic number. My husband wants to put half of the realistic number because he thinks it will be to our benefit.</p>
<p>In reality, how do they use this number? I though the college is the one that "decides" how much we can pay. Why do they even ask us?</p>
<p>I would be careful with this question. I do not know how they use the parents information but I put my mother in law would contribute and they took the entire amount from our financial aid.</p>
<p>No one knows why they ask.
They don’t seem to use the info when calculating aid.</p>
<p>Do an EFC estimate, and give a little under that amount is what I would put down. They are asking the question to make sure they get “Every Friggin’ Cent” you could possibly pay. Like 3Younguns put down that grandma might pay, so they took that into consideration. There are kids with no grandma willing to pay. Whatever resources, amounts that you give that are not covered by other questions, they add to what you can pay.</p>
<p>If you know your EFC is just the whole cost because you know you won’t get any FA how do you answer when you are applying with merit in mind? (for OOS)</p>
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<p>Now THAT’s a good question. </p>
<p>Why not be honest? If you have $15000 to give, put that down. If your EFC is more and they think you should pay more than $15000, what you put down won’t matter. If you put down $12k and your EFC is $15k, you might get a person who will award that gap. It probably won’t matter and they will gap you anyway, but why not just be honest?</p>
<p>We put what we thought we could really pay.it was a lot less than the cost of attendance. The school’s did not give us the balance in financial aid.</p>
<p>You aren’t going to get more just because you put down that you can afford less than your EFC. You are highly unlikely to even get your EFC as PROFILE’s calculation of what you are expected to pay tends to be more than that EFC. You aren’t going to get more than what the school formula and funds will allocate to you regardless of you answering this question indicating you need more.</p>
<p>But if you say you can pay for the school, why do you need financial aid? So if you can pay, go right on ahead and do so. The question is there to “out” any other resources you might have that are not already covered in PROFILE. Like Grandma’s willing to kick in the money. Or you are willing to break into your savings, pension more than formula expects you to do. Or take out loans. THose are not covered in the questions.</p>
<p>You won’t get more money if you put a smaller number.</p>
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<p>This question comes up every year. We’re not even sure if the schools even look at this. </p>
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If you know your EFC is just the whole cost because you know you won’t get any FA how do you answer when you are applying with merit in mind? (for OOS)</p>
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<p>Merit is awarded thru Admissions office, not usually the FA office. </p>
<p>I doubt OOS publics even look at the answers to those questions because they are irrelevant.</p>
<p>I guess the schools can use this number when they want to offer some discount to attract a desired high-pay. For example if your EFC is 50K/y and you indicate that you are willing to pay 40K/y maybe your chance to get this 10K discount goes up? </p>
<p>Oh, some schools do look at this. That’s why the question is there. To dig out whatever other sources of tuition payment that may not be covered in the form. Not that many OOS schools use PROFILE. Not all may look at that question, I 'll grant that. But some do. </p>
<p>I asked this because it was a question not on CSS or fafsa but on apply Texas, We haven’t come across this question on actual application forms for other schools though. For a Texas school the answer is very straightforward but for a school that is a good choice for merit but a financial reach, the answer would be nuanced. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just answer honestly LOL. I am very green at this whole process for sure. I have read that financial information may well be used for merit allocation, even if it is just as a database. </p>
<p>It would be nice if some Adcoms were on this forum who could answer this question. I just doubt that schools look at those answers and say, “oh, they can only pay X, so we need to give him Y so he can come.” I also doubt that if they say, “hmmm…they say that they can pay $35k, so we don’t need to give them a large merit award.”</p>
<p>No, you don’t get a dime more of low balling what you can afford. You aren’t going to get MORE than what you would get from fin aid formula. The question is a way to ferret out any extra money that might not be covered by the questions. THe big source is Grandparents or a trust or if parents are planning on using 401K or HELOC to pay for the college. If they are willing, then that’s just so much better for the school. </p>
<p>Why do you think they ask the question?</p>
<p>^^
@cptofthehouse I always thought they asked that question for need-aware schools. I think the question has been there awhile and it’s never been removed…even if it’s hardly really used. </p>
<p>Do we even know if the FA offices see that answer? It’s not on the FA app, it’s on the admissions app. </p>
<p>I have not looked at a CSS PROFILE in a while. . The last I saw, the institutional questions want to know wthings like whether the student plans to have a car on campus and they can also ask for other possible sources of college payments. But they also ask for contributions form the students’ parents and other relatives in the expected summer/school year resources which is tantamount to the same thing. How much is a student expecting the parents to pay?</p>
<p>Need aware schools often do look at FA apps. .Though some may just look at the question as to whether a student is applying for financial aid or not, most need to know HOW MUCH aid this student will need/ It’s a big difference at need aware schools whether you need $5-10K in aid a year or a full ride or close to it. The only way to tell that is from the fin aid results. Fin aid and Admissions at such schools often work hand in hand or they are one and the same. Asking how much a family can pay is often digging into “other resources” . That question is covered in PROFILE. Not FAFSA as it makes absolutely no difference to the EFC which is all FAFSA provides.</p>
<p>Also some schools use FAFSA and not PROFILE for fin aid purposes, but want some additional info instead of just using FAFSA info and may ask some specific questions like that to better decide how to give out aid. </p>
<p>But yes, FA offices see that answer when CSS PROFILE is used. The question is right there. worded as" Contibutions from student’s parents for college university expenses. The next line item is "contributions fro mother relatives, spouse’s parents and all other sources. They also ask for the student to list the sources.</p>
<p>It’s on the part for the student to answer in addition to all the specific info parents have to answer in their section. Threeyoungus in post #1 likely had student put in that grandma was kicking in $10K so it was taken off the financial aid. Kid puts down parents can pay $50K and that might well become the amount taken into consideration despite what the parental expected contribution comes out to be, though if the amount falls short, the school isn’t going to give more. It becomes the new minimum in in expected contibution replacing anything lower in the actual numbers.</p>
<p>Not all schools do this. But some do. If you are dispensing aid and have to do so very carefully, what do you do when someone has on the aid app that parents will be contributing $X and the relatives $Y? Ignore it if it reduces the aid package and say, keep your money, dear people, we just wanted to know for interest’s sake?</p>
<p>Could the answer to that question form part of the basis to get out of an ED contract if the aid is not sufficient?</p>
<p>(I’m assuming that at need blind schools the adcoms scrupulously do not look at the Profile when making their decisions.)</p>
<p>If we put down 20K as what we think we can afford (but our EFC is around 35K), and the cost is 33K (“cheapest” NPC result of the three colleges my son applied to early), would the colleges assume my son would take out the rest as loans since relatives are offering zilch.</p>
<p>Does that sound like correct reasoning? We’d rather co-sign him to take out loans, than pay them ourselves (and possibly have to pay them later for him).</p>
<p>It’s what we think. We would not turn down a college because of it, he would take out loans.</p>
<p>On PROFILE, it’s always been a question that caused problems. It scares those who want the most aid possible,but do not want to hurt their chances of admissions.</p>
<p>Those schools that are need blind in admissions won’t care. The decision to accept or not is made by the Admissions office, and accepted students’ names are then sent to Financial aid which is a whole other department. The bean counters then match up the accepted students with their financial aid applications. If PROFILE shows that a student can get $40K covered from parents and relatives, and that is more than the expected contribution, then the cost to that family will be $40K vs what the expected contribution amount would be. The question is to ferret out any resources that PROFILE does not cover. Why bother to ask the question if the answer is not so used? But, no, not going to get more than what the schools need formula will calculate. Otherwise everyone would put down a big fat zero. </p>
<p>These days with the NPC, you can see what the school is likely to give, and I would put a figure slightly below that, less an merit awards that might be listed. Some schools list merit awards that are not guaranteed in their NPC estimates. In my days of filling out PROFILE, the EFC was the number we’d use, less a little.</p>
<p>Rhandco, the fin aid office would ignore the $20K you put down if your EFC is higher. Schools can’t give you more than Cost minus EFC, without losing Federal funding goodies to put in your package. You do have to pay that EFC unless the cost of the school is less or you get enough merit to more than meet your need. </p>
<p>So if your EFC is $35K, that is likely the least you will be asked to pay the above factors not withstanding. </p>
<p>Your son may have loans already in his financial aid package, and if the Direct Loans are already listed, then there aren’t any he can take out on his own. YOu have to get involved. PLUS is available for parents at 7% a year which is a hefty hit, but a lot of the co signed loans are as much or more. You have to check them out. The problem with most cosigned loans is that the loans are going to be on both your credit reports as well as your sons, and if anything happens to either of you, the other is left holding the loan for repayment. It’s equally both of your responsibilities. Unless you get an interest rate more favorable than PLUS, I wouldn’t go that route. PLUS also includes insurance features in that if either you or your student dies, the loan is forgiven. Not so most cosigned loans. Also the terms are more flexible than most other loans. So shop carefully. You would still have to pay back cosigned loans if your son cannot make payments for whatever reason. </p>