Is there any privacy at all when it comes to PROFILE and FAFSA?

<p>I'm starting PROFILE, which I accessed through D's Collegeboard account. So once I input parent info, DD can see the details about our finances. While she knows where we stand financially in general, I think this is too much information for her to know. Is this the way it works, or is there a way to make parent info "private" from student? Does FAFSA work the same way?</p>

<p>Your D must be a lot more curious than mine :-) What is it that you're hesitant for her to see?</p>

<p>I just don't think she needs to know my income and assets down to the penny</p>

<p>haha... my mother had the same problem and changed my collegeboard password. I needed the account, so I had the password emailed to me, but I never checked the info. If you don't mention anything to your daughter, I doubt she'll even realize she has access to the information.</p>

<p>Yes she does. I agree. FERPA prevents me, without her permission from going onto Ds college information, yet I am required to give her my information down to the last penny. </p>

<p>mom1111 - I am in total agreement. They should allow a parent account that links to the Student accounts so that parents can pay bills or provide confidential financial information, confidentially.</p>

<p>I'll be the voice of dissent here. Your student needs to sign both the FAFSA and the Profile indicating that THEY acknowledge that all information is accurate. I have to say...I would never sign anything <em>I</em> wasn't allowed to read and I wouldn't advise my kids to either. We viewed this as a time to honestly have the kids understand the finances of their educations and our expenses and incomes. I know not all families feel this way, and it is a personal decision, but we did the finaid forms with our kids. I will say also, it helped DS a great deal to have done four of them WITH us so that when he became a grad student (and we were no longer involved), he knew what he was doing. Prior to college applications, we had already had an honest discussion with both kids about family income, assets, and their college costs. For us, this was just a verification of what we had told them.</p>

<p>thumper1, as you may remember this battle has been fought on CC before. </p>

<p>There were basically 3 camps.
1) Don't tell them squat,
2) tell them generalities,
and
3) the dang form requires them to sign off on the mumbers - they HAVE to see them.</p>

<p>Like you, I was in camp 3. I don't think anyone's mind was changed at the end of the day and I don't think this year will be any different. I was the one pointing out that there are penalties for mis-reporting that could flow to the student. Others felt that the student was only verifying student numbers not parent numbers (or an argument somewhat like that, anyway - that there would be no liability to the student if the parent lied). I know of zero cases on point.</p>

<p>In my family my D knows what we have , and what we don't have. Made the college financing conversations easier for me. But I agree that other family dynamics would suggest a different approach. Again, one size is unlikely to fit all. As far as the legality, I still say they are attesting to the correctness of a document for a potential federal benefit. I'd be mighty careful anytime I was doing that.</p>

<p>The kid is pretty much an adult and it is a good idea for kid to know your financial situation, if you trust them. You won't be young forever :(</p>

<p>Long before I filled out Profile or FAFSA I sat with my D and gave her the down and dirty. I'm low income, own no assets, and didn't anticipate college expenses. It put things into perspective as far as I was concerned.</p>

<p>I guess I don't understand what it is a parent wouldn't want an adult child to know? Are they embarassed by the lack of income or funds? Or do they not want the child to know how much they have so the darlings want some of it?</p>

<p>I agree with Thumper and the curmudgeon, and the others below them. Our children may still be our babies, but they are really adults now. Any school loans that they incur are considered to be their responsibilities. We may prefer that they not know our financial situations, but if we are applying for financial aid, we have to realize that they are the prime applicants, and even though we pay the bulk of the bills, they have to sign everything-- and we do as well.</p>

<p>Also, on a somewhat related note, you need to realize that you will not have access to their grades or to their health care situations once they are in school, unless they specifically sign waivers allowing you in, because of two laws that disallow our participation in these, as they are adults by law (FIRPA and HIPAA-- sp?). It can be awkward, to be sure, and it can be frustrating, but it is reality. If you have financials that you would rather keep private, perhaps you had better bite whatever bullet it is and have that tough discussion. Better they find out from you now than later, when they might feel that you were hiding something from them for whatever (well-meaning I am sure) reason.</p>

<p>I'll be the somewhat weird middle here. My kids have always had a very clear picture of our finances--we generally didn't discuss exact numbers, but they knew where we (they) stood, and nothing was hidden. Never saw a need to.</p>

<p>OTOH, when I filled out the FAFSA and CSS Profile, it was just me doing it. I filled in the PINs and passwords, and S trusted me to "sign" off for him. He had zero interest in "checking" my numbers, and wouldn't have had a clue how to do so, since I set up the accounts. If he wanted to see them, he was welcome to, but he couldn't have done so without finding out from me how to access.</p>

<p>This was purely an expediency strategy--I was doing the filling out, so I'm the one who needed the access. I do understand that adults need to be careful about what they sign off on, but 1)they can't know if the figures are correct or not, and 2) if my S doesn't know that I will be answering honestly and accurately, we have a worse problem then how we fill out FA forms.</p>

<p>I think it is reasonable to have a discussion with S or D, one that includes the fact that this will be a two way street. I think it is reasonable to state that parents will be sharing sensitive financial info, and often times parents will also be paying significant portions of tuition, room and board. In return, the parents expect that students will in turn sign the necessary FIRPA ahd HIPAA forms, along with things like the health care surrogate, durable health care power of attorney etc. that will allow parents access to health care info, or allow a parent to be able to make health care decisions if child (who is now an adult) is critically ill or injured. This is the time to say that you as parents will trust their college kid with info and access, and that son/daughter can expect the same trust in their folks by signing to allow parents info and access.</p>

<p>I had assumed I will be completing the forms in their entirety and having my kids sign blindly. This thread has made me think maybe I should drag them through the bleak process...valuable life lesson to realize parents cannot afford to support kids indefinitely.</p>

<p>This argument has been fought before, but Mom1111 I'm with you. The colleges expect the parents to pay - fine - then the little darlings don't need to know every detail of your financial situation we're the ones paying the bill. When I'm old and infirm then the little darlings who will now be middleaged darlings can know our financial details and either celebrate or cry about their inheritance or lack of inheritance. If my husband and I die in a freak accident then the lawer and the financial guy can explain the details of our finances to the little darlings at that point in time, but as long as the colleges and govenment expect us to finance the kids, as long as they are still dependents on our taxes they do not need to know our financial details, period. That's the way it is in our family anyway. That's the way both my husband and I were raised so their is also history in this method. Different families feel different and there is no one size fits all. Each family has its own dynamics regarding finances.</p>

<p>This is not a problem to me. My oldest is a minor now. But by the time he attends college, he will be an adult. I can trust him not to blab about my personal data, which I share with him in increasing detail as he grows up. He needs to know what our family financial parameters are as he gets ready for college. He's FAMILY, and I treat him like family.</p>

<p>Disclaimer first: we're several years away from having to fill out the FAFSA, so I only have a general idea of what info we'll be submitting, and we'll be filling out the FAFSA only for merit aid and to have the paperwork in place in the event that there's a serious change in our financial picture. </p>

<p>That said, I'm hesitant to have a child on the brink of adulthood know everything about our finances because I don't want them getting complacent and thinking that we'll always be there to protect them and provide for them financially. In a general sense, there's much that they know: they can look on zillow and get a sense of what our house is worth, they can do a bit of legwork and have a vague idea of our incomes. They know that they have college savings (though we won't tell them exactly how much until they are rising high school juniors or seniors), and they know that we save for retirement. But seeing the specific numbers on paper is a different thing. Looking at the value of house equity, for instance (though maybe that's not part of the FAFSA?) might look like a resource to be utilized...but that's without knowing that we intend to use that piggy bank for X, Y, or Z, which may be sober financial issues (e.g. long-term care insurance) or something more frivolous (adults-only trip oversees). Of course, it could go the other way--the younger child in our family has an overly rosy view of how much we earn and of how much things cost, and seeing the real numbers might sober her up. </p>

<p>It seems very much an individual family decision.</p>

<p>Sunnyflorida: Where would one access all of the forms that you refer to?</p>

<p>I am in the camp w/ Mom1111, SlitheyTove, and Momof3boys. D knows we have or will have enough money for her to attend the school of her choice once she has been accepted. H and I believe D does not need to know the particulars of our finances……………….but I have no problem w/ others who feel differently.</p>

<p>The Ferpa grades and health thing is easy: no waiver, no money from Mom and Dad. What reasonable argument can be made that parents should pay but not verify what they are paying for?</p>

<p>Re the FA forms, I've been in Curm's Camp 1. The kids don't know anything. I don't show them what they are signing, and they don't care.</p>