<p>@Owlsnest - you don’t have to file FAFSA to show colleges you have enough money. You just have to pay the bills, semester-by-semester, and if not they will drop your student real fast.</p>
<p>Owlsnest, the IRS people already have all that financial information. In fact, pretty soon (if not already–we don’t file FAFSA so I don’t know) you will auto-populate your FAFSA directly from your IRS forms. The only reason I can think of for someone to worry about what IRS agents would do with your FAFSA info is if you’re putting different numbers on both forms…in which case I’m all in favor of “eager IRS agents” doing something with that information. </p>
<p>I agree that there’s no need to submit a FAFSA in order to show that you can afford the school. People who have tons of money can demonstrate that by writing six or seven figure donation checks. 
We are contenting ourselves with writing five-figure checks on a regular basis :eek: ;)</p>
<p>Casey1: I thought of that too. Will it work against us? I think I’m going to have to pick and choose which schools I send it to. I won’t send it to the public universities that I’m sure won’t give aid. Maybe I will only send it to our pricey private.</p>
<p>Very timely thread…have a relative who actually thinks their 2nd child,entering college in Sept, will get FA,not merit,but Good old FA…their family rakes in about 350k±, though not sure how much is base salary and how much is bonus…S1 currently attends Georgetown,paying full costs…S2 is looking at similar priced schools…is he as crazy as i think he is ,lol, with the belief he will get FA…not sure what Georgetown COA is,but i asssume near 50-55k, so he is looking at 110k per year in costs±</p>
<p>With $350K I would say ignoring the facts, definitely no FA (provided there are no large medical bills).</p>
<p>Mamom - did the school offer more merit aid after you filed your fafsa - even though you didn’t think you would qualify? Also, I thought you had to qualify for work study, as it is a federally funded program.</p>
<p>I think it is very school specific as far as what the FA office thinks when they see your EFC and deciding on merit. My D1 was up for a large merit award (required nomination) at one school and we did NOT apply for FA there as I got the distinct impression they used merit money to lure wealthy students and not to supplement the needy ones- she got full tuition. We applied for FA at all the other schools on her list and got merit w/in FA at each school that had merit to offer. In those cases she ended up with less loans because the merit covered them, her need was met (at schools that don’t promise to meet need) but at the full need meet school with no loans - I can’t believe the merit made a monetary difference on our end - but for the school they could use money from the merit bucket and free up FA bucket money for another student OR perhaps they wanted my D1 to “feel the love”? Ether way it all worked out :)</p>
<p>ACollegeFan–thumper1, who knows a lot about financial aid, gave me the same advice last year, so I called the financial aid office at every college to which my D applied. There is also a trust involved in my case, so I purposely asked my most complicated question (about the trust) before asking questions 1 and 3 (we weren’t interested in a Stafford Loan either). As a result, the person who answered the telephone handed me off to someone more experienced almost every time! </p>
<p>None of my D’s 8 colleges considered need when deciding who should receive merit awards, and all said that we could be eligible for institutional need-based aid in subsequent years even if we didn’t apply as a freshman.</p>
<p>In our case, my D’s colleges required the CSS, which is more complicated than FAFSA and costs money to send to each college. As I knew she wasn’t going to receive need-based aid this year, I wanted to save every penny I could for college!</p>
<p>Of course, you should satisfy yourself about the policies of your child’s colleges. I agree with the comment that someone made to the effect that it is easy for others to say that everyone should file–it isn’t their time or money being wasted, or their personal financial information that is being distributed. The solution is to refrain from asking, “Should I complete FAFSA?” and instead ask specific questions that will satisfy you.</p>
<p>whoaaaa…why do you say “committed the grave sin of saving in a 529”? That is the child’s asset as such a very low % of it (5%?) is considered as available for college. No??</p>
<p>" Not only did we have a large income, we also committed the grave sin of saving in a 529 and having money in a savings account for emergencies. "</p>
<p>Since when is it a sin to be able to save money for your child’s education and for financial emergencies? This is something that I would consider to be a blessing!</p>
<p>**whoaaaa…why do you say “committed the grave sin of saving in a 529”? That is the child’s asset as such a very low % of it (5%?) is considered as available for college. No?? **</p>
<p>I believe it’s counted as the parent’s asset.</p>
<p>The FAFSA needs to be filled out even for scholarship monies to be disbursed at some universities. My son won a brand new scholarship (sophomore year) which will look good on his resume. He did not have to disclose his parent’s income to earn it. There is also the odd chance that something could happen to one or both parents (causing a loss in income), and having the FAFSA all filled out would be very convenient. In fact, after the first time, the form gets easier and quicker to fill out in the succeeding years. Just a thought.</p>