Need Help: Divorced Parents, Confidentiality, Fee Waiver, COVID impact

Hello,

My ex and I both filled out the CSS profile, both using tax returns, pay stubs, and accurate financial info. EFC for every school was very similar:

$33,000 Household 1
$29,000 Household 2

Prior to COVID, we would have been a full-pay family. Household 2 was severely impacted and EFC went from 42K to 29K.
*
42K is EFC from 2019 tax returns. 29K EFC is from current, updated pay stubs/account info.

Questions:

  1. When submitting the CSS profile, it gave us a fee waiver but it seems like we shouldn’t qualify for one. Is this because I checked the ‘impacted by COVID’ box (or whatever it officially says)? I’m concerned that our file, flagged with fee waiver, could possibly hurt my daughter’s chances at need-aware schools.
  1. When my daughter is accepted to a college and they give her financial aid award details, will they separate it out for each household?
  2. Will EFC amounts, or billing, be kept confidential in terms of Household 1 and Household 2 not knowing what the other is paying? *I ask this because I am Household 2 and my ex would become very difficult were he to learn I was paying less.
  3. When submitting documentation to show impact of COVID following prolonged unemployment, I planned to scan everything into one document and label it Special Circumstance. I will include the following: 1. Initiation of COBRA to show date of job loss; 2. Receipt of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance; 3. Paystub from new job showing substantially lower salary; 4. Most recent savings and investment statements; and 5. An explanation of the situation. Is there anything else I should include, or steps I should take to ensure the financial aid office sees this and takes it into account? I understand there are no guarantees. I submitted everything else for financial aid except for this info.

Thank you!

At need aware schools, the admissions folks will see your level of financial need. The admissions folks do NOT see the details of your financial aid application forms at all. This is confidential information and is not released to others. @kelsmom

No. Your daughter will get one financial aid award based on all the information submitted on all of the required need based financial aid submissions.

Your student will receive ONE bill…only one. Separate bills are not sent to each household. The colleges honestly don’t care who pays that bill. That is up to you and the other parent.

Have you contacted the colleges to find out what they want you to submit. I believe you will be looking for a special circumstances consideration. Every college has its own procedure for doing this and the process varies from place to place. You need to find out the process at each college, and send them only what they ask for.

Where were you planning to attach this document you are creating?

I don’t have too much to add but I get it. Been divorced over a decade. First child is now in his second year of college and the supposed college savings was awarded to my ex and due to many disagreements through the years with my sons stepmom, dad has chosen to not give our oldest son a dime of money for school (account has all 3 of our kids names on it). I have talked with my lawyers ad nauseum about this and there is nothing we can do. Only saving grace is my son has chosen a tech school path and it is much cheaper so between him working part time, I am able to pay 100% of it.

Kid #2 is a high school sophomore but also his dads golden child so there is some hope that he might get some financial help from his dad in the future. I now work for a university so there might be some tuition help there as well.

My kids live with me slightly more so the fact that I make less than half of their dad does help a little. But dad makes about 200k so there wont be any other need based aid available.

@2plustrio

This is true for colleges that require the non-custodial parent financials. But there are plenty of colleges, even Profile schools, that do not require this information and where your kids might actually get some need based aid.

There are even some elite schools that meet full need for all that don’t require non-custodial parent info…University of Chicago only uses the Profile and a short form of their own, no non-custodial parent info. Vanderbilt doesn’t require the non-custodial parent Profile. I’m sure there are others.

And there is always merit aid which doesn’t take anyone’s financials into consideration…at the colleges that award merit aid.

@GoldPenn how did you derive those numbers? Schools using the Profile do not generate an expected family contribution…at all. If you were trying to use the net price calculators, those won’t be accurate for you either.

He does have some slight chances with need based aid but I’m not counting on it to help prep my brain for the reality. We could potentially have 3 people in the household in college at one time by the time 2nd kid enters in so yes, that may help. The possibility of tuition exchange or fachex options will be looked into as well.

Does your settlement not cover how this works out?

I worked in a law office through undergrad and spent a year in law school before getting pregnant. And I can’t tell you how many appointments and ongoing services were provided for this issue.

I know of Profile schools that do indeed generate their own EFC based on data from Profile, and they even call it that. That’s one reason I try to be careful and always distinguish a FAFSA EFC from an EFC derived some other way.

Mine does not. We were just in court again not along ago and our judge wouldnt even hear it because our oldest had already aged out and was an adult.

@thumper1

@GoldPenn how did you derive those numbers? Schools using the Profile do not generate an expected family contribution…at all. If you were trying to use the net price calculators, those won’t be accurate for you either.

Sorry, I’m totally lost here but I’m new to this. My ex and I each used the CSS profile to obtain numbers from the colleges our daughter is looking at, right from the school’s website. For each one, it gave us an EFC along with an estimate of how much would be a grant, work, and/or loan. We filled out the CSS profile as instructed and uploaded the documents (full tax return and last pay stub) that the schools require. There is a link on the profile to a document center which allows you to upload documents. You can select “other” to give additional information or to notify them of a change of circumstance.

Need-based aid numbers derived from a completed Profile form won’t be made available to an applicant until admission is offered and a financial aid package is presented. I don’t see how you and your ex, using Profile, could “obtain numbers from the colleges our daughter is looking at, right from the school’s website.” Are you confusing the financial aid application process, using FAFSA and Profile, with the Net Price Calculator that every school makes available on their website?

@mom2boys1999

Our settlement specifies only that a state school is to be paid 50/50. We agree on the private college and we agree, for the most part, on the amount. CSS sets it up so that each parent’s financial information is kept separate and confidential.

@thumper1 I understand there would be one financial aid award and that the college doesn’t care who pays the bill. Even so, I assumed CSS would give us the EFC for each household the way it did in the calculators from each school. I suppose we could still use that info if it’s not broken down further.

I’m with @BelknapPoint . You won’t know your total net cost at any college until you receive a financial aid award from that college.

I’ve never heard of a college that sends a calculated net cost to each parent in divorced situations. I’m not saying that doesn’t exist…but I’ve never heard of that. When your student receives a financial aid package, you will know what the college is giving for need based aid in total for that student. That financial aid award is subtracted from the total cost of attendance at that college. The remainder is your net cost…or family contribution…as that college determines it to be.

Profile schools will use the data on the Profile to determine awarding of institutional need based aid.

I’m still very unclear how you think you know the “EFC” for each parent right now. Could you clarify that?

The FAFSA gives a student aid report (SAR) which has the FAFSA EFC on it. So far as I know, the Profile does not do this.

@BelknapPoint has there been a change and now the Profile generates a “EFC” for each college?

A student, with parent help, completes and submits FAFSA and this results in a SAR with a FAFSA computed EFC. That’s not how it works with Profile. There is no “Profile generated EFC.” Instead, schools that use Profile take the information from each student’s Profile, run that information through the school’s unique formula, and derive a school-specific EFC (or whatever the school wants to call it) for every student that submits a Profile. In simpler terms, a student could submit the Profile to ten different schools that require it to be considered for institutional need-based aid, and based on the information reported on Profile, each of the ten schools might come up with a different amount that the family is expected to contribute to the student’s expenses.

It sounds like you think CSS/Profile is somehow directly related to the net price calculators that are available on school websites. As far as I know, this is not the case.

This is my understanding as well.

I echo others who say that NPC results, run by each parent separately, may not be accurate. Does either parent have their own business, or own real estate beyond a primary home?

Household 2 will have to file CSS profile (and FAFSA if that is the custodial parent) with 2019 info, and then ask each and every FA office for professional judgment to take into account the lost income in 2020. Schools may or may not grant this professional judgment request. If granted, it might be partial, not full, relief.

Is the student applying to any FAFSA only schools?

@BelknapPoint
It sounds like you think CSS/Profile is somehow directly related to the net price calculators that are available on school websites. As far as I know, this is not the case.

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Yes! You’re right, this is what I assumed. Because the NPC calculators link to the College Board, and the CSS profile links to the College Board. And because I have repeatedly heard here on CC that the NPC calculators are accurate, I thought they were the same thing. But it sounds like you’re all saying it’s not the same thing.

Here is a link from Amherst, for example: https://www.amherst.edu/offices/financialaid/calculator

@GoldPenn

The net price calculators are typically NOT accurate for divorced parents. You can’t just run one parent, and then the other and add the things together. It just doesn’t work that way.

Please, view the numbers you got as an estimate only. Until your student receives a financial aid package from Amherst, you will have NO idea what your final out of pocket costs will be.

@thumper1
I know the estimated EFC for each household by following the directions for divorced parents on the NPC calculator for each school. Of course it’s approximate but I assumed it was a reasonable ballpark, just as a non-divorced family would assume it’s a reasonable ballpark. Each school has their own formula and some have more grants while others include loans, but essentially the EFC was roughly the same for every school.

At this point, I’m regretting asking the question to be honest.

It’s good that you asked the question. You were assuming something that isn’t necessarily accurate.

As noted, you need to contact Amherst about what they want for a special circumstances consideration (due to the reduced income). They will tell you what documentation they want…and when.

If this is an ED application, it’s very possible that this special circumstances consideration might not get resolved in time to make a decision about accepting an offer of enrollment. BUT you absolutely can ask for an extension on that decision deadline for ED students.

It might all work out just fine…if the net cost is such that you two parents can split it and pay the bills.