My son is applying to 2 colleges that have a CSS deadline of Feb 15 and 1 with a deadline of Jan 15. He has already applied RD.
In your opinion, when is the best date to fill out the CSS forms and send them in? My wife and I both have varying incomes monthly, so I would think it would make sense to fill them out as late as possible.
Your thoughts??
I believe the school of thought is to do this sooner rather than later, as more funds may be disbursed in the early rounds. I believe I did an estimate of one pretty soon after it became available in the fall, and then revised as soon as I had my tax return.
You will need to estimate your actual 2015 incime…with the amounts you think you will earn. Waiting or doing it later won’t change the amount you actually put on the forms.
For the Profile for a RD student, I would imagine you can wit until February 1 to do the Profile. You should try to have your taxes completed by that time.
In terms of early filers getting more…in my knowledge, that is for certain limited forms of federally funded need based aid…things like the Perkins loan, federal work study, and SEOG of your schools offer it. These are limited funds per campus and are awarded on a first come first served basis. So you want to do your initial filing of FAFSA as close to January 1 as possible…with the best 2015 estimates possible. Then update ASAP after February 1 when your taxes are completed.
In terms of institutional aid fo schools using the Profile…for a regular decision applicant…make sure you don’t miss the deadline.
If you want and are able to, you can shift any 2015 income into 2016 to give you a lower “base year” for financial aid calculation purposes. This may be particularly important for 2015 if, as some college finance experts believe, CSS will follow FAFSA’s lead and use 2015 income figures for both the 2016-2017 academic year and the 2017-2018 academic year.
As far as the timing of completing and filing Profile goes, for most people who are real planners I expect the specific day depends on when assets are at a low point. This can be immediately before a pay day, immediately after the mortgage or other large expenses are paid, immediately after a large gift is made, or a combination of any number of different things. Personally, I pick a day immediately before pay day, and I may prepay my mortgage a few weeks earlier than I normally do and/or pay my credit card bills early to draw down bank account balances. In the end it may not make a huge difference, but every dollar I can lower our EFC for the meets full need school is another dollar I can keep in my wallet.
This is tremendously solid advice. For many people, prepaying your mortgage, credit card bills, etc. will draw down their bank account significantly. Consider people whose bank account typically hovers around say $8,000, which is enough to cover their safety net of a month’s mortgage/taxes, car payment(s), utility payments, insurance, fill their furnace with heating oil, etc. By prepaying these right before filing for financial aid and accelerating anticipated expenses (get the car tuned up, new tires, etc.) and doing this right before a payday deposit, it isn’t hard to envision that they can draw their assets down from $8,000 to say $3,000. If the college’s EFC formula uses 20% of family assets, this type of planning has saved this family $1000. For these families, $1000 in additional Financial Aid means way more to them than it does for families who have much bigger nest eggs.
Prepaying the mortgage will mean they more equity will be in that home. For colleges that Clint home equity, this might not save you much.
But agree with the advice to file the financial aid applications when your assets are at a low point…unless your asset amount is below the asset protection allowance. If it’s lower, it doesn’t make any difference when you file the forms.
“Prepaying” as in paying the monthly mortgage payment early one time each year immediately in advance of completing/filing the financial aid forms. Not paying off the entire mortgage (although, if the resources are available, paying off the entire mortgage might be a very good strategy for a school that doesn’t consider home equity).
BelnapPoint- OP here-thanks for your help.
What exactly did you mean by this?:
If you want and are able to, you can shift any 2015 income into 2016 to give you a lower “base year” for financial aid calculation purposes. This may be particularly important for 2015 if, as some college finance experts believe, CSS will follow FAFSA’s lead and use 2015 income figures for both the 2016-2017 academic year and the 2017-2018 academic year.
How can you shift income etc that has already been received? Excuse my ignorance on this.
I’m talking about income that has not yet been received, over which you may have discretion about when it can be received. This may include a year-end bonus, payments based on commission, and similar transactions. I would expect that most people would not have these choices, but for those that do, deferring the payments to the next year can have an impact on financial aid calculations.
Belknappoint makes a good point. And especially for this 2015 tax year which will be used for the 2016-2017 AND 2017-2018 FAFSA forms.