Reply to ISO advice on whether to fill out the FAFSA form - 529 in grandparent's name FBO the grandchildren

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Reply to "ISO advice on whether to fill out the FAFSA form - 529 in grandparent's name FBO the grandchildren"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]1. You do not have to disclose the grandma's 529 on FAFSA.  As you said, she is in control and can change the beneficiary or close the account at any time, so it's not your kids money until she actually pays.
2. It used to be that grandparents paying tuition will come bite you back in terms of financial aid next year.  The rules have recently changed, but I don't remember when the new rules go into effect, may be 2023-24.   
3. [b]If your HHI is $450K, you will not get any FA from FAFSA. [/b] You will most likely not get anything from schools who use CSS or their own form either.[/quote]

OP here.  Thank you for this feedback.  I did an online expected price calculator for one private college to which my daughter plans to apply.  It made it seem like we'd get a discount of $20,000 per year off of tuition.  (Total cost would otherwise be $80,000 per year.)  Do you think that the online expected price calculator is not reliable, as it does not have all the facts?[/quote]

Some colleges give discounts for families with two or more kids in college at same time.   My family has two kids in private colleges this year and a similar income level, and we were not eligible for any money in the past when we only had one kid in college. We got a discount of $20K at one school and $15k at another school, and these discounts were almost identical to the estimates from the online net price calculators for the schools.  To get the discounts, we had to fill out the FAFSA and CSS profiles for both schools.  We had never filled these forms before before and won't in the future.  Because we filled out the FAFSA, my kids were also eligible for 3K of subsidized loans this years (no interest during college years).    The FAFSA is really simple (maybe 20 minutes to prepare) and basically asks for information from your taxes and your savings/529 plans.  The CSS is more detailed and varies by school (maybe 1-1.5 hours to prepare).   For example, every school asked for information about family businesses and investments, while the schools also asked for various different information, such as the purchase price of your home, mortgage payments, health expenses, 401K savings, etc.  For the CSS, you also need to submit W2 for the last couple of years.

By the way, I was repeatedly encouraged by various schools to apply for financial aid and that it would not effect admissions.  You can look up need aware schools and see who considers a students finances (For example, https://prepexpert.com/need-aware-colleges/), but even these schools admit need blind until their finances are exhausted, so just apply early if your are asking for financial aid.

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