Oh totally! Many people who avoided government loans are starting to rethink things because of the loan forgiveness program.
Stafford and Parent Plus loans have some perks such as:
-borrowing as much as you need up to full COA (no limits, pretty easy to get approved)
-interest rate is fixed for life of loan
-some flexibility with loan repayment such as income-contingent repayment
-(sounds morbid but…) upon the death of a borrower, the agency just needs to be shown the death certificate and the loan is discharged
-no penalty for paying off early
In our case, we will be downsizing around the time the loan payments begin so we will be able to pay off a good chunk, possibly all of the loan quickly, so the PP loan made sense to us.
I feel like this loan forgiveness is a one time gift (if it even survives the legal battle) that might be hard to do again, but I really hope they renew this in the next few years to include more students/new borrowers. But there are other ideas out there such as free community college or other ways to make college more affordable for poor and middle class families. Some countries spend more on education than defense spending so it’s really a matter of how our government prioritizes things in the coming years. You definitely should consider a government loan vs. a bank loan, but not just because of the potential for loan forgiveness, there are other pros too.
This question had come up during my D’s admission cycle. I wasn’t sure about the wording on a couple of colleges’ websites so I wrote to ask. They confirmed FAFSA/CSS would not be required for merit aid. So I’m curious to know which schools require these.
To be clear, I’m not challenging you. I just want to know for my knowledge. Thanks.
I have a friend who did not do the FAFSA for child # 1 (he has an inheritance that will cover college for all 3 of his kids.) She had a full tuition offer from University of Miami so no issue there but her # 1 school was USC and they said they could have offered her some merit if he did the FAFSA, but nothing without doing it. She ended up choosing USC and paid full price, at least for year 1. Even though he could afford it, he told me he was doing the FAFSA for future years. I’m sure it’s a decision per school so just call all the schools on the list to be sure.
This is gold. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply!! D23 isn’t looking for anything too “sheltered” - quite the opposite- this is mostly just me her mom wondering . . .
We are swallowing our pride and trying not to worry about our privacy and doing the FAFSA and CSS just in case. Our D23 is chasing at least a little merit too but we are also able to pay a fair amount if absolutely necessary (shhhh don’t tell tell her targets haha!). We have a couple more kids to think about down the line and it is what it is for us.
(disclaimer: not saying that all who avoid the FAFSA are prideful or anything of the sort - can definitely see all the pros and cons!!)
If you mean you didn’t want your daughter seeing your whole financial picture - you’re not alone. That’s exactly the reason we didn’t complete the FAFSA and CSS.
Loan forgiveness isn’t a done deal, I certainly would not change my financial and college planning based on “what ifs”. In the grand theme of things where the average student loan is like $86000, $10000 means absolutely nothing.
Yes, but once you enter all your information your kid can see everything using their login. Technically, it’s all their information so they have full access. I’m aware most kids don’t bother, but it’s there if they want to see.
Well, I don’t really care if my kid can see the information. Maybe if we were ridiculously rich and she had no idea I would care, but that’s not the case .
Southern California was mentioned upthread, but there’s some others that require the FAFSA, from experience (and double checking to make sure policies haven’t changed): Central Florida, North Carolina (for some but not all of them), Tennessee, Wake Forest (for most but not all), Union (also the CSS), and lots of regional publics. Also, many state merit scholarship programs (including my own state’s) require filing the FAFSA.
I suspect that there are two reasons: First, it verifies citizenship, and some state laws limit aid from public institutions by citizenship. Second, it’s financially better for a college to use federal and state need-based aid; if a college has a cost of attendance of (to pick a round number) $50k and they would be willing to offer a $25k institutional merit scholarship but the student qualifies for $30k in federal and state need-based aid, then they only have to pay out $20k in institutional money for the same effect.
Thanks for sharing. When we researched this issue the FAFSA/CSS requirement seemed to apply only to merit scholarships that consider need, and/or to students that applied for need based aid. But, we didn’t look specifically at the schools you’ve listed so that’s good information.
My suggestion to @bethy1 and others in a similar situation is to ask the school directly (we knew we wouldn’t qualify for need based aid so didn’t see the point of filing these forms). In our case all the schools we contacted confirmed we were good to go without these forms. YMMW.
I saw it as passing the threshold to adulthood. Maybe because we were late parents, but I felt when we’re officially launching a $ 1/4 Mio “joint venture”, it’s time for the “partners” to open their books.
I wanted her to know how her college was being funded, what the long-term consequences to the family resources were, what options might be there if a choice of major/profession during college might require grad school. But also, what the exposure was (or what safeties were in place), if either parent(s) had a medical or job-related crisis, or long-term/permanent issue - or worse.
My strong opinion is: If you want them to make responsible, adult decisions and conduct themselves as such while on their own for the first time, then they should know what the stakes are – for the entire family.
I also made clear, not to expect much of an inheritance: What (to a young adult) might seem like big figures in 401k’s and IRAs will steadily whittle away over the course of 30 or so years!
Yes, good points. But families can follow different paths to achieve the same desired outcome (i.e. have kids become responsible adults who truly value and appreciate the gift of education they’re receiving, and understand how it was achieved).
Will the main info save for next year (if my son chooses a CSS school) or will we be starting everything fresh again?
There is a question that asks for value of 401K, IRA, “tax-deferred and after-tax retirement pension” etc. I have a 401K (very easy to check value) and a pension through NYS teachers (been teaching 30 years and will retire in 5-10 years.) I looked at my pension statement and it does not give the overall value, just estimates my yearly pension amount if I retire at 55 vs. 60, for example, and states the death benefit. I called them to see if they had a “value” for my account and they don’t since there are so many variables (when I retire, when I die, etc.) Called the CSS helpline and asked how to handle the pension question and after talking in circles for an hour she said I would have to ask the CSS schools how they want me to answer. Ugh-anyone report a pension on the CSS and know the best way to answer that? Maybe use the “lump sum death benefit” amount if I were to pass away?
As I am completing this, I’m thinking about the single mom trying to manage her household/kids while working a few jobs (and perhaps limited in education) and how awful these forms must be for someone like that. The wording is confusing and it’s not a user-friendly system. I am frustrated, but have resources (and time after work) so I try to be grateful and just push through this madness!
Just to clarify: Wake Forest does not require Fafsa or CSS for any of their non-need based merit scholarships. We were recently at an info session and they specifically stated that. There are some need packages that will have need-based merit scholarships, but they are considered need-based aid.
The bottom line is they said if you know you do not qualify for aid, you do not need to do the fafsa or CSS, and you will still be considered for all of the purely merit-based scholarships that do not require an additional essay/app, as long as you turn in the application by the merit deadline. They gave the same explanation in 2020 when my older one applied, and the website reflects the same.
It does appear that for the most part it’s public institutions that require the FAFSA for all aid. Like I said upthread, that makes some sense, given laws in some states governing n public distribution of scholarship money.
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