Report: Financial Aid Process Is Too Confusing

<p>CSS Profile includes home equity - FAFSA does not - that might be the reason for the higher number with the CSS Profile.</p>

<p>*My Financial Award letter from my ED accepted college based on CSS profile calculates the Paremtal Contribution at $68,000. Actual college cost is $54,000.</p>

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<p>The difference is likely do to assets that aren’t considered by FAFSA.</p>

<p>However, I’ve never heard of a CSS Profile contribution that is higher than COA. Is that a real amount…or an estimated amount from a calculator?</p>

<p>I have a dilemma, I may have to submit one day after the priority deadline for the css profile because of monetary reasons. Will that significantly impact my financial aid award?</p>

<p>"However, I’ve never heard of a CSS Profile contribution that is higher than COA. Is that a real amount…or an estimated amount from a calculator? "</p>

<p>The parental contribution of $68,000 is from the “Financial Aid Memorandum” from the school after the ED. At that point, I think the only financial info the school had was the CSS profile (I think).</p>

<p>Just went to Collegeboard Website, and used their EFC Calculator. </p>

<p>The “Show Detail” option is no longer available for IM or FM, so you can not print out the detail and see exactly how your EFC is being calculated. </p>

<p>You will get an EFC for the IM & FM if you chose them both, but will have no idea of how it was calculated under each formula & just where is your EFC coming from! </p>

<p>The Collegeboard did not release their information to Kalman Chany for his 2011 of “Paying For College Without Going Broke” book, so there were no worksheets in back of the book to calculate your EFC using the IM. (Institutional Methodology) </p>

<p>So now the Collegeboard is not cooperating, an EFC from IM cannot be calculated by us, the parents, the actual consumers! I think that totally stinks! </p>

<p>If you want to calculate your EFC under IM, buy the 2010 Edition of “Paying For College Without Going Broke” on Amazon or other website where you can get a used book! </p>

<p>Where else is there a place where you can calculate your EFC with the IM ?
The Collegeboard does the CSS PROFILE, which is used for the IM. </p>

<p>When we buy a house or a car, we are allowed to see what it is going to cost!</p>

<p>IM (Institutional Method) doesn’t have as its end result an EFC calculation. Only FAFSA calculates an EFC. IM simply collects information that each college deems relevant (including make/year of cars!) and then allows the college to apply its own formula to this information. For example, colleges have different methods of calculating the impact of home equity. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much home equity adds to the expected contribution for each college. Some colleges cap equity at 110% of income, some use the Federal Housing index, some use the entire amount and assume it can be borrowed against.</p>

<p>The most useful IM calculations will appear on individual college websites that provide their own calculator.</p>

<p>For the past 8 years I have been able calculate our EFC for the IM with Kalman Chany’s Book and also the College Board’s website EFC calculator. </p>

<p>Granted each college may have different policies about home equity, out of pocket medical expenses, or private elementary/secondary school tuition paid for applicant’s sibling(s). Being able to calculate our EFC (IM) has been a very useful guide for our family, but now it is beginning to get bit more difficult. </p>

<p>Before the Collegeboard website “shut off” the detailed documentation, I had printed out both FM & IM calculations for our EFC using estimates, so I will be holding onto them. I am also glad I did not “recycle” the 2010 Edition of “Paying For College Without Going Broke” with worksheets for FM & IM EFC’s in the back of the book. </p>

<p>No, the EFC for IM is never given to the parents after they have completed the CSS PROFILE form, as Kal Chany has stated in his books “mere parents are not allowed to know how the formula is constructed” and “an uneducated consumer is the college’s best customer.”</p>

<p>But it’s still supply and demand. We apply for various schools’ financial aid, get offers, and accept one of them. What does it matter if we know each school’s formula or not? How does knowing the formula help? To enable choosing the schools most likely to give the best offers? For those who have the ability and want to bother, perhaps by moving assets around?</p>

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<p>Knowing the formula in advance would eliminate the issue of kids spending time and money applying to a school their family definitely will not be able to afford. It might also reduce the “selectivity” ratings of schools that don’t get a lot of kids who can’t afford them wasting their time and money applying there. Perhaps if schools were losing applicants and “selectivity” based on an unfavorable method of computing need, they would attempt to become more competitive (either working to reduce costs or increase endowments to allow additional grants to be offered).</p>

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<p>But not every college has a calculator. Isn’t the federal gov’t mandating any college that receives federal funds to have a price calculator on its website starting , I think, next year? I just hope the price calculator is accurate and not just ‘fibbing’ - ‘filling in the blank’ ™.</p>

<p>“an uneducated consumer is the college’s best customer.” is a funny sentence with some irony in it,juxtaposing uneducated and college. What does Ralph Kramden say, ’ a regular riot!'.</p>

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<p>I think so. I did notice that both Drexel and MIT have taken theirs down since last year. I wonder (total speculation on my part) if their calculators didn’t comply with the federal requirement, so they took them down to make them compliant. I kinda wish they’d left them up, even with a disclaimer!</p>

<p>Isn’t the federal gov’t mandating any college that receives federal funds to have a price calculator on its website starting , I think, next year?</p>

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<p>All that will do is give you a PRICE. The calculator is not supposed to give you an estimate of your aid, as that is not possible. Aid is not one-size-fits-all.</p>

<p>wait, really, all they have to do is list COA? They all already do <em>that</em>. Why would a “calculator” be needed for this?</p>

<p>Aid is not one-size-fits-all but I thought the point was to have the calculator compute an estimate of a family’s aid based on them entering numbers such as those they would enter on FAFSA and/or PROFILE. Aid is generally calculated using some proprietary formula, is it not?</p>

<p>What am I misunderstanding here: [Coming</a> Soon: Reliable College-Cost Calculators](<a href=“http://www.walletpop.com/2011/01/10/coming-soon-reliable-college-cost-calculators/]Coming”>http://www.walletpop.com/2011/01/10/coming-soon-reliable-college-cost-calculators/)</p>

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<p><a href=“emphasis%20mine”>i</a>*</p>

<p>This strongly suggests that what is required is a calculator that will take into account what a college estimates a student will receive in financial aid, presumably after taking into account various pieces of information that the student must input.</p>

<p>mathmom - this is indeed coming. I found one for my son’s university and it asks for basic financial info - much like what you would include on the FAFSA - and then gives you a sample aid package. I did it with last year’s info and what I got from the calculator was quite close to the actual package rcvd. So, then I did it for this year and for next year when we have 2 kids in college to see the effect. I do not expect this to be 100% exact by any means - but it is nice to have a ballpark figure. I do hope that what you quoted is correct and that every school has such a calculator shortly. </p>

<p>I think this would simplify things greatly for college consumers. Do the calculator - if the estimated package is insufficient - don’t even waste time applying. Personally - I love the concept.</p>

<p>I just looked at the federal template for the net-price calculator. What it does is asks the school to input median need and non-need based grant and scholarship aid from federal, state, or local governments or the institution awarded to and accepted by first time degree seeking students at various EFC levels. From this, a “typical” package will be developed …</p>

<p>I think that may not result in happy campers if folks think they are getting a typical package but do not get that much.</p>

<p>This appears after doing the net price calculator:</p>

<p>These estimates do not represent a final determination, or actual award, of financial assistance or a final net price; they are only estimates based on price of attendance and financial aid provided to students in 2009-10. Price of attendance and financial aid availability change year to year. These estimates shall not be binding on the Secretary of Education, the institution of higher education, or the State.</p>

<p>Not all students receive financial aid. In 2009-10, X% of our full-time students enrolling for college for the first time received grant/scholarship aid. Students may also be eligible for student loans and work-study. Students must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in order to determine their eligibility for Federal financial aid that includes Federal grant, loan, or work-study assistance. For more information on applying for Federal student aid, go to [Home</a> - FAFSA on the Web-Federal Student Aid](<a href=“http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/]Home”>http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/).</p>

<p>Sorry, I am truly not seeing anything in the net price calculator that will tell an individual family anything “real.” It will give an estimate based on what a group of people have received in the past. If Susie gets more, her family will be happy … if she gets less, her family will feel sc***ed over. I guess your outlook depends on which side of the fence you end up on.</p>

<p>There is a lot of discussion for schools suggesting that they <em>not</em> use the federal template, which has many disadvantages. As I understand it, schools are allowed to develop their own calculators (or more likely, contract this function out). </p>

<p>I would imagine that it will take a while before this all falls into place and people figure out what the calculators are and are not good for. I would hope that they would at least offer a “best case” scenario in addition to a typical award. If the best case scenario is still not affordable, then the student can safely take the school off his list.</p>

<p>kelsmom - I know it’s not perfect - I know it is not 100% accurate - but it is better than nothing - which is what we have now. </p>

<p>If I do a calculator and get an estimate that is fairly close to my goal package - we proceed. If I do the calculator and get an estimate which is never going to work - I have that info before my child applies. Think of all the threads we see where a student applied ED and the package does not work - or they were accepted at their dream school - but the money is not adding up - these problems could be eliminated if people had the access to these calculators and could get a ballpark estimate before applying.</p>

<p>It’s like buying a house in that you have an idea of the asking price - you make an offer - there is a negotiation and so forth. You don’t know what the exact price of the house will be before submitting the offer - but you certainly know whether it is in the $100,000 ballpark or the $200,000 ballpark - why can’t college be the same way?</p>

<p>I will be very interested in reading the comments about the net price calculators after they are put into use. My suspicion is that they will lead to a whole new crop of complaints: The calculator told me this, but all I got was that. I would never have applied if I knew that it would be so different from the calculator.</p>

<p>I could be wrong. Time will tell.</p>