<p>We are vey fortunate. My AGI is $175K. Will there be any point for me to even bother with the FAFSA/CSS form next fall?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>By completing the FAFSA, your child can take out a Stafford loan in his/her name for $5500 for freshman year. Also, some schools REQUIRE the completion of the financial aid application forms for even MERIT aid. AND some schools will not allow you to APPLY for need based institutional aid in subsequent years if you do not APPLY as an incoming freshman.</p>
<p>Check your schools’ policies.</p>
<p>Do you think you might need to borrow? PLUS also needs FAFSA,</p>
<p>Pro: My feeling is that it is a relatively small investment in time (maybe an hour once you have your tax forms complete to refer to) against the possibility of unforseen financial difficulties either this year or in subsequent years. As noted above if you don’t apply freshman year you may not be able to receive it later.</p>
<p>Con: if you are applying to a school that is “need aware” in admissions it will work against you to apply for financial aid. Again, check the schools’ policies.</p>
<p>You don’t have to send the FAFSA to any schools if you are not applying for financial aid at the schools. You can just file it so you can get PLUS, Stafford accessibility and have it available if a merit scholarship wants it. You can just answer “no” for financial aid and still file the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Thanks to all. That answered my question.</p>
<p>Have you tried using one of the online estimators to see what your EFC would be?</p>
<p>Print out the FAFSA formula, and work through it on paper so that you can see which items most affect your results. Granted, with your income, your EFC is going to be high. However, you may have a slight bit of wiggle room. And, at the very least you will know what your EFC really is!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/101310EFCFormulaGuide1112.pdf</a></p>
<p>We were in same boat as you, too much income to qualify for FA. But, as others have said some schools require FAFSA for merit aid and we weren’t sure if we would want to S to take out a Stafford loan. S has a younger sis in private school and we weren’t sure about cash flow, so we filed. Ends up we didn’t need the loan but you never know. </p>
<p>I want to give you a pat on the back for thinking about this when your child is a jr. I can’t tell you how many parents are clueless til April of their kids sr year about paying for school. Good luck to your child!</p>
<p>One thing I learned in recent weeks is that some schools have merit aid that is reserved for students who qualify for need-based aid–someone said if the student qualifies for even $1 (COA-EFC), they can then justify going to the “merit for kids with need” pot of money for that kid.</p>
<p>So…play around with the numbers…who knows what you’ll find?</p>
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<p>It might, but may not for most applicants. Apparently most need-aware schools admit need-blind until the financial aid budget is depleted, so it’s just those applicants on the cusp that are affected. A call to the financial aid office might confirm a school’s policy.</p>
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<p>Cptofthehouse, I did not know this. How does this work? How do you get offered a Stafford Loan as your financial aid package with a school if you don’t send the fafsa to the school? Doesn’t the school need to confirm with the lender that you are either a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior, going full time, and making academic progress? Could you explain this to me?</p>
<p>If all you want is a an unsubsidized Stafford, you can wait as long as you want to get the FAFSA to the school. There are students who are filing the 2010-2011 FAFSA right now so that they can cover their final bills before the end of May.</p>
<p>We have filed FAFSA. We had to for a federal internship for my son this summer. It had nothing to do with financials but he had to get through the FAFSA clearing house in terms of draft registration, citizenship etc. Everyone who wants a piece of HOPE, Bright Futures, the WV state monies, has to file FAFSA to get any of it even though there are no financial ceiling (at least at one time one did–haven’t checked lately). We may need PLUS money but won’t apply until we know we need it since the loan starts accumulating interest as soon as you borrow. So it’s better to borrow it second semester and save the few months worth of interest. So we’ll pay first term in full for both our son and borrow what we need in January. With some luck we won’t need to borrow much (ha, ha). But the FAFSA will be in place for when that happens. </p>
<p>The same if either son decides to borrow STAFFORD money which the one who is currently in college has not yet had to do but has come close. If the second one’s college costs should increase by a lot, his housing costs go up, he doesn’t make money this summer, he transfers to another more expensive school within his university (business, a possibility), wants to do some program that costs money, he has the $5500 buffer. So we filled out the FAFSA, it is on file, we have a PIN to access it when needed. But no school has it yet. Since our EFC was too high for financial aid, it made no sense to even apply, though technically my younger son might have gotten something (probably stafford subsidy) for the few highest cost schools on his list that he ended up declining anyways.</p>
<p>All students who qualify regardless of family income and assets can take out Stafford Loans on an unsubsidized basis. If the school does not send that info with their packets, you can call fin aid and ask for the material or look on the web site. The federal government gives out the PLUS and STafford and approves them, not the school itself. The school just accepts the money.</p>
<p>You cannot borrow more than the COA minus any other grants, discounts you have received. If your kid has a merit scholarship that pays every cent of COA, he cannot, and you cannot borrow Stafford or PLUS for instance. You are not supposed to be making money from this. Not that the deal is so great. </p>
<p>As I mentioned, it makes sense to wait till you need the money before borrowing it, as PLUS accrues interest at no insignificant rate soon after it is issued.</p>
<p>Okay, so are you saying that you send the fafsa to the school if you decide you are interested in a PLUS, or student wishes to take on a Stafford Loan, otherwise it sits completed without being sent anywhere?</p>
<p>If your child is a rising junior ( a junior next fall), why would you be submitting FA this next fall?</p>
<p>Or is your child a rising senior? (a senior this next fall)</p>
<p>If you feel that you can pay full freight (55k+ per year), there’s no point to submitting FA paperwork.</p>
<p>However, if you think your financial situation might change, you should.</p>
<p>And, if you need to do loans, you should.</p>
<p>And, if you want your child to be considered for merit scholarships, SOME school require FA info. Some don’t. Don’t worry, even if you don’t qualify for FA, you can often still get merit scholarships even if a school asks for FAFSA/CSS.</p>
<p>If you feel that you can’t afford to pay $55k per year, be sure to tell your child what you can pay and then have him/her apply to the right schools…ones that cost what you can afford and/or schools that will give merit scholarships to make them more affordable.</p>
<p>For a parent loan (PLUS) you don’t even have to contact the school. You apply for it on line. You have to have a FAFSA filed, but when you are cleared for the PLUS, the money is sent to the school. They have nothing to do with it. I never had any dealings with any of the schools to which I sent PLUS funds, not a thing. I don’t even remember to whom I filled out the FAFSA, maybe I did have to indicate what school my kid was attending, but I don’t remember. I wasn’t applying for financial aid so it was not of relevance. It’s all government money, and it was all done online. You gotta let PLUS know which school your son is attending so that they can check COA limits and send the money there. It was not a school intensive thing. </p>
<p>This year I had to fill out FAFSA in January and send the results to a federal agency for son’s internship application. No financial need is indicated, but FAFSA has to be filed as a clearing house as the job was only for US citizens and others eligible for federal funds. I have yet to apply for PLUS or for Stafford, but might in December or January for second semester. I am trying to decide whether both kids shouldn’t just take out Stafford for the year and then I pay those loans as it would be cheaper than PLUS, if the $13K is enough to make up what I need, I don’t want to take out 3 loans in one year paid out in 2 time periods. It just gets too confusing, and mistakes can be made and will never be caught when I make things too complicated. We have had it happen></p>
<p>It would have been cheaper to have had all of my kids take out Staffords and we pay them all rather than taking out the PLUS loans, but for accounting purposes and the amounts we needed, it was cleaner doing it this way. Fewer loans, easy tracking and my kids were all 100% loan free if we died. They have have full amounts to borrow for professional/grad school because they did not take a dime during ug years. It leaves options open for a second Bachelors/Master and all sort of possibilities.</p>
<p>But this year is really the most expensive in terms of two kids in college with our cost scheduled to be $70K. The kids are paying for their own books, supplies, sundries, spending money, transportation other than one round trip plane ticket or two one ways apiece. They are poised and ready to pay their share. Us, well, smile.</p>
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<p>As far as I can tell, this is CC mythology (I’d love to be proven wrong). In another thread, we were only able to come up with one school where this was true, and even that one was questionable. </p>
<p>It’s true that the FAFSA opens the door to loans, however (unsubsidized, with very high interest).</p>
<p>My kids didn’t apply to any schools that required FAFSA for merit consideration, but I do remember seeing that req’t on some schools’ websites.</p>
<p>And, I believe that Thumper’s D had to fill out FAFSA for merit consideration at Santa Clara. </p>
<p>Frankly, since SCU is a Jesuit school, and I have looked at many Jesuit school websites, it’s possible that it’s something that some of the Jesuit schools do (not all). I will look and see what I find. :)</p>
<p>I think the reason that Thumper was told was that the school wanted to know if the student also qualified for fed aid (and probably state Cal Grants) because then the school could adjust the merit award so as to not exceed COA or whatever.</p>
<p>Here’s one…</p>
<p>Gonazaga…Jesuit. It’s the first one I just checked.</p>
<p>[Scholarships</a> - Gonzaga University](<a href=“http://www.gonzaga.edu/Academics/Colleges-and-Schools/School-of-Business-Administration/undergraduate/admissions/scholarships.asp]Scholarships”>http://www.gonzaga.edu/Academics/Colleges-and-Schools/School-of-Business-Administration/undergraduate/admissions/scholarships.asp)</p>
<p>* Financial Aid forms (e.g., FAFSA) must have been filed with the University by students applying for any of the scholarships.*</p>
<p>Note that Gonzaga also has a small number of scholarships that don’t require filing FAFSA…that kind of contradicts their own wording above.</p>