I have personal experience with this situation. Assuming grandparents have full legal guardianship granted in a court of law:
Student files FAFSA as independent.
CSS Profile may vary by college although it can only be filed once! 5 of 6 colleges wanted guardian’s financial info. One wanted student to file Profile as independent. 5 out of 6 colleges waived the noncustodial parent form. One wanted both bio parents to file it (Profile only allows one noncustodial form).
I personally contacted each Director of FinAid and kept notes. Sometimes I had to say Well another college wants it this way, and then the Director might say Well that will be fine, I’ll make a note in the file. For the college that wanted the student to file the Profile, I just added a note explaining that we also completed the “parent” sections because other colleges wanted that.
Hallelujah she is going to a FAFSA-only college so we don’t have to deal with the Profile anymore.
Excellent FinAid packages including merit at two midwestern LACs, both FAFSA only.
In our case guardian income low enough to qualify for need based aid. But in any case, I highly recommend including some FAFSA only colleges in the mix.