Should I attempt to apply for financial aid?

Paying for College
1

Please don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just wondering if I should attempt to apply for aid/FAFSA. I ran the net price calculator at a number of top-tier schools (ND, UVA, Penn, etc.) and I got an estimated gift/grant aid amount of $0 at every single school (as in, I would be expected to pay full freight).

I would think that these NPC are somewhat accurate/telling, correct?

2

What do you have to lose, other than the time spent filling out the forms???

3

Unfortunately many schools will REQUIRE the FAFSA. Probably due to government reporting.

I would suggest calling the school(s) in question to find out if they will admit without the FAFSA or CSS Profile.

4

@rednecktiger‌

There is no univ that “requires” students to file FAFSA…none, nada. Do you think Bill Gates filed FAFSA when his kids went to college?

We never filed FAFSA for any school that our kids applied to.

Schools can’t “require” you to apply for FAFSA to be considered for admission.

5

Some of the reasons for filing financial aid paperwork when you have strong evidence that you won’t get need based aid are these:

  1. At least one place on your list has a firm policy of never awarding need-based aid in future years if you haven’t applied for the first year, even if your circumstances change drastically. You can email the admissions and aid offices and ask about that.
  2. You are eligible to receive a federal student loan, and want to be able to get one to help pay some of the expenses. Then you do need to file the FAFSA.
  3. At least one of the places on your list requires that all students who are being considered for merit-based aid file financial aid paperwork. Some do, because they want the students who are eligible for federal money to get that money and/or need is one of the factors that they consider when determining who gets the merit aid and/or how much they get.
  4. An outside scholarship that you are applying for requires that you file the FAFSA and/or other financial aid paperwork.

If none of those pertain in your case, then YAY!!!

6

I expect that we’ll be full pay, but we submitted a FAFSA to have the option to take a loan. I don’t think my daughter will need to, but we’re new at this and want to cover our bases. It doesn’t take long at all to fill it out.

7

@Fourthmom‌ Good to hear. I guess I will try anyway.