What would be the advantage of FAFSA-only at a U like Cornell?

Paying for College
1

I just noticed that Cornell U has option of FAFSA-only financial aid applications (instead of FAFSA plus PROFILE). I’m wondering, why would anyone want to do this?

“Students wishing to apply for federal financial aid only (no institutional grant consideration) should complete the FAFSA and contact us at finaid@cornell.eduto indicate that you wish to apply only for federal financial aid. This email must come from the student directly; parents are not able to make this request.” [ see bottom of page at https://finaid.cornell.edu/apply-aid/current-students-applying-or-renewing-aid ]

2

It’s for those those who don’t want to have to fill out PROFILE. Perhaps they have an uncooperative non custodial parent. Maybe they just want loans.

A friend of mine had kids that qualified for PELL, state money, SEOG, Loans all through FAFSA. With a very well to do non custodial parent, they were entitled to no institutional aid

3

You answered this yourself.

"“Students wishing to apply for federal financial aid only (no institutional grant consideration) should complete the FAFSA and contact us…”

Eg, fed stu loans.
No advantage if you need money from the college.

4

If you use the FAFSA only at Cornell, you will only be applying for federally funded need based aid…which is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of attendance.

If your kid needs and wants to apply for Cornell institutional need based aid…and Cornell does meet full need for all eligible accepted students…they must complete the Profile as well.

So…what kind of aid are you looking for?

5

Thanks for replies.
Thumper1, I’m def looking for institutional aid!
So it seems that people who would do this simply know that they would not qualify for grant aid anyway, but still may need FAFSA to qualify for loans, as Cptofthehouse suggested. Or else, they’re allergic to institutional grants!

6

I don’t know anyone allergic to institutional grants, but if you’ve got a divorce situation (for example) where the parents are not communicating and there are assets that one parent has that the other doesn’t know about… or some “off the books” income- there are plenty of reasons to avoid the Profile.

7

Right.

There are also a number of families that own a business that’s not counted on FAFSA, but would be counted on CSS Profile…so they know that they won’t get institutional aid if they submit CSS. Some of these people have crazy low EFCs, too.

I know a lady who has a 0 EFC since she literally deducts almost everything against her 6 figure business …but CSS would capture some of those deductions.

This all came out when she said that she was paying $20k per year OOP for her son’s college. I asked her how a 0 EFC person could do that…and she told me… hmmm

It really is a loop hole that FAFSA should close.

8

Actually this can be done at virtually all CSS schools.