Question is:
(1) If EFC is more than College cost, then is there any point in including family income and financial details in Fafsa when applying for colleges?
I would rather my kid just skips the “family income/assets” section. Would that hurt?
Unless there is any chance of getting any grants. (Don’t need loans).
(2) Does Fafsa have any element of a “merit” based grant consideration?
Thanks.
Depends on the college. Some require submission of the FAFSA for merit aid while other colleges do not. You need to check with the colleges to which your kid is applying.
The family section can be skipped once the kid is 24. I know kids who wait to do that. Or if the income is low, parental assets can be skipped.
Some schools have much higher ceilings for financial aid.
You need to ask the college how they award merit aid. The department of education does not award any merit aid through the FAFSA or otherwise.
Either your undergrad kid completes the FULL FAFSA or doesn’t do it at all. There is no option for him to complete JUST the student section and submit it…if you are his parent, and he is your dependent, and you support him.
If you don’t want to complete the whole FAFSA…just skip it. No one will force you to do it.
Some schools do,require it for merit aid consideration…so make sure that your schools don’t…if you are chasing merit.
My D17 received merit awards at four out of the five schools to which she applied without our filing FAFSA. However, the school she is attending required filing FAFSA in order to claim her merit award. I think all her school were also CSS schools and we never filled that out.
HI Did you D17 have to fill out Fafsa including parent income etc, for accepting merit aid? Or could she skip the parent section?
If a school requires the FAFSA for a student to receive merit aid, you have to fill out ALL of it. The form is electronic and you won’t be able to submit it unless it’s completely filled out.
In order to receive her merit scholarship, D’s school required the FAFSA be completed to prove she was not eligible for a PELL grant. If she had been, then the school could have recouped some of her scholarship money from the federal government. I did joke about wishing I could just send my tax returns in and be done with it, but I filled it out.
And as others have said, you cannot submit the form without completing all required sections. If the student is your dependent, then your family income must be included.
It seems to be a minority of schools that require this for merit aid, but my thoughts are better safe than sorry. Either check with each school, or just fill out the form.
Once the student and parent demographics are filled in, you can choose to link to your completed 2016 tax return in the FAFSA to import income information.
If both parents have earned income you will have to specify the income for parent 1 and 2.
Then there are asset questions and student income and assets.
It’s not that difficult.
Once more…if the school requires the fafsa…they will require the WHOLE FAFSA…including parent information.
You will not be able to submit it with all blank fields in the parent section. Your student is NOT independent for financial aid FAFSA purposes…those fields MUST be filled in if you are filing the fafsa.
It sounds like you don’t want to put your financials into a financial aid form. That is perfectly fine…but understand…if the school requires this info…you won’t get merit aid without it.
@mannysan1 if your question was directed to me, the answer is Yes. It is exactly as @thumper1 describes. You
can’t fill out the FAFSA without the parental information. I think some of the schools that awarded her merit did not require a FAFSA to claim it, but the school where she enrolled did. Her merit scholarship is good for 4 years, assuming a minimum GPA, so I will be filing the FAFSA each year now. I have ZERO expectation of being eligible for any need based aid.
The only reason to fill it out is for student loans, or if your child attends one of the schools were your EFC is substantially under the sticker price. We did it for one year and did not bother for subsequent years.
You have to ask the school about whether the FAFSA is required for merit aid. My olders sons did not have to fill it out since their schools did not require it. Some schools do. Just call and ask. If you qualify for merit aid you might as well do it even though it is a pain in the neck. Merit aid will not be rescinded if you submit FAFSA.