FAFSA - is middle-class waste time applying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

No necessarily true! 300k sounds a lot. But after tax, medical and retirement deduction, it is lucky if could take home half of it. With other kids to support, who can afford to use 50% of take home money paying for one kid’s college expenses?

Still not middle class - you live in the DC bubble, so you think anything under $1m per year is "middle class". GMAFB.

OP, many private sector people make less than you, stop trying to play martyr.

Two incomes 150k each is not that wealthy to live in dc area with age 50+ plus multiple kids

It's pretty good and twice as much as we have! (both age 50+ in DC area, multiple kids)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I are both gs14 fed employee with combined income around $300k pretax. This is quite common for middle class in dc area. We’re told not to bother filling up FAFSA or any financial aid since we won’t be qualified for anything so we won’t apply. Is it true for anyone in our situation?

Now, if kid gets into a private college with annual expenses 70k+, how middle class manages to pay for it without any aids or scholarships?

Who told you that?

You won’t get any need-based aid, but some schools use it to look at what merit aid they will grant.

Not many---merit is based just on that, merit. Only a very few schools require FAFSA filing to get merit awards.

Except when it is also based on having a FAFSA on file to be considered for it.

So why not be accurate from the beginning and acknowledge that for some merit awards at some schools it would matter, but not most? That's a distinction with a difference, and that difference may matter to some middle class families.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:merit based scholarships do require FAFSA however they are hard to come by, you almost have to go down two notches school ranking wise to score some.

This is totally wrong. Almost NO schools require FAFSA for merit awards. We did not fill out FAFSA and my kid got merit aid offers from a dozen different schools.

And submitting FAFSA is not required to keep the award?

DP: Nope. My kids got merit from over 15+ schools. Never filled out FAFSA and it was never required at any of those schools. It's actually the opposite---only a few schools require fafsa for merit (or the CSS). We are full pay. Both kids got 30-70% tuition merit awards. Had they needed fafsa, we would have filled it out. But otherwise, we would never get any need based FA (Never, nothing could change to make it happen---our contribution per year is in 7 figures).
So I never filled it out as our finances are not their business.

Okay, sure, you can make that choice, but don't confidently assert to other families that it doesn't matter. Sometimes it does, and people should be able to make that informed choice.

When you are wrong, you are wrong. Try instead: "Even though the FAFSA may be relevant to some merit-based awards, having the full scope available to your child might not be worth putting your financial information out there. It wasn't for us." That would at least be accurate.

I recommend you check with the individual schools your kid is applying to. In my experience, it was not required at any of my kid's school choices for MERIT. I contacted them all and asked. They all keep FA awards separate from merit awards--their merit were all based solely on merit.

However, I do admit there are a few schools where filing fafsa can help. So ask and if your kid's choices include that, then file.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

No necessarily true! 300k sounds a lot. But after tax, medical and retirement deduction, it is lucky if could take home half of it. With other kids to support, who can afford to use 50% of take home money paying for one kid’s college expenses?

Still not middle class - you live in the DC bubble, so you think anything under $1m per year is "middle class". GMAFB.

OP, many private sector people make less than you, stop trying to play martyr.

DP. Not sure if you live in the DC area but $300K income is not wealthy here. Yes, we live comfortably but with 2 kids, we're not going on European vacations every year and we certainly can't afford paying for Princeton tuition. Hoping my kids get into UMD.

It's still very good and twice what we make. You could afford Princeton by saving 15k a year per kid (with growth) over their lifetime and paying a little as you go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is CSS?

It’s an online platform that many private schools use to determine merit aid. First you need to see if the school where your kid applies will ask for it. You can read about it here:

https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/about

Then you fill it out. Sometimes the school will ask you to follow up with an upload of documents such as tax returns. Some won’t ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:merit based scholarships do require FAFSA however they are hard to come by, you almost have to go down two notches school ranking wise to score some.

This is totally wrong. Almost NO schools require FAFSA for merit awards. We did not fill out FAFSA and my kid got merit aid offers from a dozen different schools.

And submitting FAFSA is not required to keep the award?

DP: Nope. My kids got merit from over 15+ schools. Never filled out FAFSA and it was never required at any of those schools. It's actually the opposite---only a few schools require fafsa for merit (or the CSS). We are full pay. Both kids got 30-70% tuition merit awards. Had they needed fafsa, we would have filled it out. But otherwise, we would never get any need based FA (Never, nothing could change to make it happen---our contribution per year is in 7 figures).
So I never filled it out as our finances are not their business.

Okay, sure, you can make that choice, but don't confidently assert to other families that it doesn't matter. Sometimes it does, and people should be able to make that informed choice.

When you are wrong, you are wrong. Try instead: "Even though the FAFSA may be relevant to some merit-based awards, having the full scope available to your child might not be worth putting your financial information out there. It wasn't for us." That would at least be accurate.

I recommend you check with the individual schools your kid is applying to. In my experience, it was not required at any of my kid's school choices for MERIT. I contacted them all and asked. They all keep FA awards separate from merit awards--their merit were all based solely on merit.

However, I do admit there are a few schools where filing fafsa can help. So ask and if your kid's choices include that, then file.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that advice, other than I'd point out that there are some merit awards that require a FAFSA on file for consideration which are just as much MERIT as your MERIT. It's not like the others are tainted by the smell of the poors or something -- it's just the process that school or that award uses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

What is your income? Because you’d have even less difficulty paying for your kid to go to an expensive private college if your income was half that.

So, if you think that someone making $150K would have no difficulty paying for college, why don’t you live as if you were only making $150K? You’d have zero difficulty too with what’s left over from that extra $150K after tax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

No necessarily true! 300k sounds a lot. But after tax, medical and retirement deduction, it is lucky if could take home half of it. With other kids to support, who can afford to use 50% of take home money paying for one kid’s college expenses?

Still not middle class - you live in the DC bubble, so you think anything under $1m per year is "middle class". GMAFB.

OP, many private sector people make less than you, stop trying to play martyr.

Two incomes 150k each is not that wealthy to live in dc area with age 50+ plus multiple kids

Omg. I make 1/3 of this and my kids are going to college. Unreal

[Anonymous]

The median family income is about 100k. Why do you think 3 times more is middle class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is CSS?

It’s an online platform that many private schools use to determine merit aid. First you need to see if the school where your kid applies will ask for it. You can read about it here:

https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/about

Then you fill it out. Sometimes the school will ask you to follow up with an upload of documents such as tax returns. Some won’t ask.

I think you meant to say need-based aid, not merit aid.

[Anonymous]

You probably still want to complete it just in case. What if your financial situation changed unexpectedly? Some schools only let you submit FAFSA the first year, so if something happened in year 3 you'd be unable to apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is CSS?

It’s an online platform that many private schools use to determine merit aid. First you need to see if the school where your kid applies will ask for it. You can read about it here:

https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/about

Then you fill it out. Sometimes the school will ask you to follow up with an upload of documents such as tax returns. Some won’t ask.

I think you meant to say need-based aid, not merit aid.

Yes, sorry. Need-based aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a few minutes of your time, OP, and you should fill out the CSS too.

I filled both out, and DS got a merit scholarship to go to his school of choice. Not a bad deal.

What is your HHI?

It’s complicated. Our HHI is low right now (<100K) but we have significant assets that preclude financial aid. I filled out FAFSA and CSS, to make sure we weren’t missing anything that might be tied to those.

Also… I don’t know if disclosing wealth helped at all for our situation, which is why I said it’s complicated.

But regardless of financial status, I think families should try anyway. I don’t think it hurts.

[Anonymous]

I make about what you do, OP, and while I know we won’t get aid, I do plan to fill it out. Some schools require it for any aid or scholarships. Also, while I don’t know that this is the case anymore, once you might at least get approved for work/study hours, which make getting a job on campus easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a few colleges my child applied to that give an extra discount just for filing the darn form, so we’re going to fill it out.

You are unlikely to get any aid, but most colleges expect you to file the form

Out of curiosity, how much of a discount did you receive? Was it in the form of a merit scholarship?