<p>I have read hundreds of posts saying you HAVE to fill out the FAFSA form. I did so for 6 years while my oldest daughter was in a 5 year engineering program. She received a small amount of merit scholarships the first year, but nothing after that. Even when I was unemployed, my wifes income was too much to be eligible for aid. The unsubsidized Stafford loans helped, but the rates at about 7% were not that great, especially now with home equity loans available at half that rate. Now my youngest daughter starts college in the fall and again I filled out the FAFSA to find another outrageous EFC and no benefit.
In the meanwhile, the colleges are selling a needed product at a price that is not directly related to its cost or its value, but rather what the market will bear. How do they know what the market will bear? They have the exact income and value of the assets of all of their customers because of FAFSA. That is a large unfair advantage for the seller of an education. The Federal Government is doing a huge disservice to the public by allowing this misuse of data. It seems like a good basis for a class action suit. I am not filling out another FAFSA form.</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>You do not have to fill out FAFSA. I have two grads and we’ve never filled out FAFSA. However, if you want need-based aid, you have to fill it out.</p>
<p>You will not see a FAFSA req’t for admission on any school’s website. It’s not req’d.</p>
<p>I think you need to do some quality research about what qualifies for a class action suit. </p>
<p>No one is forcing you to fill out the FAFSA. If you don’t want to be considered for FA then don’t fill it out. </p>
<p>Selling a product based on demand and what the market will bear is called capitalism.</p>
<p>I never stated that it is legally required. There are hundreds if not thousands of postings saying that you should and I have never seen a recommendation to not fill it out. You do HAVE to fill out the FAFSA to receive any financial aid, which means that almost everyone does fill it out. This data is a gold mine for a college’s accounting department for setting the cost of fees. I very much doubt that the revenue side of their accounting is separated from their financial aid accounting, but it should be legally required to be separated. It is an unfair advantage for the colleges to know the income and assets of almost all of the attendee’s families.<br>
And…that is not capitalism since the institutions receive public support and should be operating on a non-profit basis. Do universities pay taxes on their profits? There might be a few, but generally they are not for profit organizations.</p>
<p>What ARE you talking about? No, you’re not required to fill out the fafsa. If you don’t, you don’t qualify for any federal programs- including loans. Some schools require fafsa for any aid, but not all. No one requires you to fill out the fafsa to attend their school. </p>
<p>A lawsuit?! You’re kidding, right? Gah I really hate our sue-happy culture sometimes.</p>
<p>You want the college to just give you financial aid without filling out FASFA or the CSS Profile? As I had 2 kids in college, and my EFC was split, my family was the recipient of generous financial aid. I was happy to fill out the paperwork and, since I was asking for money, I forfeited my right to financial privacy just as I would if I asked the bank for a loan. This year, my EFC is not split, and since I expect no financial aid, I chose not to fill another out. I’m not sure how more transparency is unfair.</p>
<p>The common assumption is that colleges are out to screw you, to their advantage. But, you have to first understand not all are in the position to be generous with aid. And, there is a mandate that FA decisions treat all kids in a category equally and per the same policy. (And how any exceptions can be treated.)</p>
<p>Does this affect COA? Well, Financial Aid is separate from any “institutional research” staff who might collect data. Annually, the college gives FA a budget and targets for outlay, excess reserves, etc. They work within that. Data about US earnings, expenses, etc, is available through far more professional, reliable, and accountable resources than a bunch of kids’ FA apps. </p>
<p>The proportion of kids needing FA is growing. The push for best diversity can mean more kids with more need are being reviewed for aid. I can’t see how this would encourage colleges to raise prices. What I do see is a public expectation that colleges- all colleges, all the time- have deep pockets. And that if they don’t, it’s something about them, their faculty salaries, building projects, dept budgets, perks- and their plain old orneriness.</p>
<p>Very strange original post. I’m missing the OP’s point completely.</p>
<p>GTAlum – read Post #4. Of course you need to share the appropriate data with the school, but not the whole school. There should be transparency with the Financial Aid Department, but what I said is that I think it is unfair when the Financial Aid Department is sharing accounting data with their Billing Department for setting fees.
Lookingforward – What is the basis for your assertion that the data is not shared? I agree that the costs are high, which makes people angry. I have been employed by a university and can attest that the pay is not that great for the most of the staff…. but then there are the “administrators” with dubious value.</p>
<p>Ferpa. I’m not going to dig deeply, at this time. But this is a general statement: *Disclosures to other departments or business units of the school are generally prohibited unless they have a legitimate educational interest in the records. * Keyword: educational. </p>
<p>[I think that applies to individual students’ info. Could they share some aggregate numbers? Don’t know. But with the rise in FA needs among students, how would this contribute to higher costs?]</p>
<p>As for the administrators’ salaries, someone needs to dig deeper than the common media to convince me. Especially after 2008, when my own U got more than radical about cutting excess, tightening belts and defending each decision.</p>
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<p>I agree with the first part but not with the second.</p>
<p>A vendor does not need to know potential buyers income to know how much to charge for a product or service, “what the market will bear.”</p>
<p>If I go to a jewelry store, the market price for diamonds is well known by the store owner already, regardless of what my particular financial situation may be.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that some schools use FAFSA information as part of enrollment management. But no one is required to complete the FAFSA form. I’ve never filled one out. I know, without even filling out the FAFSA, that our EFC would be $99999. I know that we will never get need based aid. And I concluded that it would be a waste of my time and an unnecessary disclosure of private financial information to fill it out. My D has a generous merit scholarship for which filling out FAFSA is not required. Now, if I wanted (and qualified for) need based aid, it would be a different story. I would have to fill out FAFSA, and understandably so. I don’t think it’s a big conspiracy or something that would warrant a class action suit.</p>
<p>There are calculators around that will estimate your FAFSA EFC. So you can figure out before hand whether your EFC is going to be way over the COA of the interested school. If you have a big beef with FAFSA, I wonder what kind of beef you may have with CSS?</p>
<p>Thank you lookingforward. Your post has been the only real pertinent reply. FERPA should address my concern if it is applied properly. FAFSA data is noted as an exception with regard to sharing data for those who require it for “educational” purposes. This assumes that the data is requested by another entity which would have to justify release of the data. However, if the “Office of Financial Aid” is a subordinate department within the general accounting department, that safeguard may be circumvented since they are the same office and the same entity with shared data files. In any case, a “Billing Dept” would have direct access under FERPA to a file regarding the amount of aid the student is receiving and, potentially, the data used to derive the amount of aid.</p>
<p>You don’t need to fill out FAFSA if you are not applying for any aid.</p>
<p>However, if you DO want to be considered for aid, how do you suggest eligibility be determined if you don’t want to fill it out?</p>
<p>Just to clarify regarding when FAFSA is required - as far as I know, FAFSA is required for Stafford loans (and PLUS loans at some schools?). So, even though D2 has a merit scholarship and we don’t expect to be eligible for any need based aid at her OOS public, we fill out the FAFSA each year as we borrow money through these 2 programs.</p>
<p>You could be right. Colleges have gotten into trouble for brokering loans and making money by directing folks to certain lenders. As far as I am concerned, all of this is one big scam subsidized by the government and parental concerns fueled by the schools, media and peer pressure. That’s what drives the costs up so high. If it were up to me, the private schools would not get any federal money, including backing of the student loans. That would drive some of those prices down very quickly when those mouths are yanked from that federal teat.</p>
<p>We have never completed any FAid forms as we didn’t believe our kids would qualify for any FAid. Our S did receive significant merit aid, which increased over his years at his U. Our D never received a penny from any source, other than us and an on-campus job she was able to get hired for that she held for 3 semesters (it was NOT work-study).</p>
<p>Some Us DO require FAid forms to be completed to qualify for MERIT aid, but neither of our kids applied to any of those Us.</p>
<p>Oh please…the maximum federal grant a freshman can get is $5500…and the max Direct loan is $5500. Some kids get work study and some SEOG…but really the sum total,of that is a drop in the bucket on a $50k yearly cost. The vast majority of need based aid at private schools is Institutional aid. </p>
<p>No one is forcing ANY student to apply to an expensive private university. If this is not your cup of tea, there are plenty of public universities in each state offering very fine educations. For real cost savings,students can attend a community college and commute from home. </p>
<p>NO ONE is forced to apply to or attend a $50,000 a year school…or apply for financial aid in order to be able to do so.</p>
<p>I think there’s something wrong with the premise here. I do not think that colleges look at the income/assets of applicants and then decide what to charge for tuition. The wealthier folks don’t even submit FA apps. So, what info are they really getting when a bunch of low income and middle income people submit?</p>
<p>I would guess that the average EFC of FA applicants is probably somewhere between $5k - 20k. So, are you saying that pricey schools use that info and set their costs at $60k? </p>
<p>???</p>