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College admissions
Course: College admissions > Unit 5
Lesson 2: Financial aid application processOverview of FAFSA and CSS Profile
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- What if you do not own a home, a single parent with 3 kids, annual income is about $9,000.
However, we have some savings so as to buy a house as we live in a small apartment. How would that savings apply to the fafsa application. Any advices?(9 votes)- I don't really know but there are advisors at colleges to help you fill at a FAFSA, that can answer some questions.(7 votes)
- I am a Student from india (i am now in my 2nd puc). So if i want to apply for financial aid for next year, can i fill it out right now? Or must i wait till January 1st?(7 votes)
- For the fall of 2015, for instance, you must apply after January 1st of 2015.(4 votes)
- Thanks for making this incredible resources available to the rest of us, it makes a huge difference! Question: Why when we applied to College for our oldest son, FAFSA estimated a tuition number that is almost half of what we were asked to pay at his current College? Do Colleges really go by FAFSA results or are these just a reference to them? Thanks in advance.(4 votes)
- I am a college prep advisor for a pre-college program and work at a college and work closely with our financial aid department. Colleges have their own costs which can raise each year, and FAFSA only estimates those costs.(4 votes)
- Are family members always expected to contribute financially? As many of my friends turned 18 before they started university, it was not taken for granted at all that their families would still fund them.(4 votes)
- No, it realistically isn't. Unforunately for graduating seniors, functionally all colleges and FAFSA will require your parents' tax information, which plays a major role in aide assigned.(3 votes)
- By typical standards, our family income is high. Is there a threshold annual income where completing the fafsa is a waste of time? We have saved for college for both of our kids but if they do not receive grants & scholarships, we will not be able to fund their entire 4 year college tuition. Can high income families still receive subsidized federal loans?(4 votes)
- Federal student loans are considered financial aid. Most colleges require students to complete the FAFSA, regardless if you qualify for grants or not. Scholarship recipients are also often required to file the FAFSA as well.(2 votes)
- Do colleges you want to apply to help you with this process even if you haven't been accepted yet?(4 votes)
- What's the difference between a grant and a scholarship?(3 votes)
- Grants are usually tied to things that need to be done. Like I might apply for a grant to do a demographics study on population densities in North Dakota. A scholarship is basically free money given to you with no strings attached. Sometimes to maintain an annual scholarship there are stipulations on maintaining a certain GPA, but in general they hand you a check and give you a pat on the back.(3 votes)
- I have just read that the FAFSA will be changing for 2017 and the application will be accessed around Nov. 1st instead of Jan. 1st. Can you confirm this information? Your video says it's Jan 1.(3 votes)
- That is incorrect. It is with your 2015 tax return.(2 votes)
- I am a current senior in high school. So i will be going to college next year (around August 2015.) I have applied early action to one college. And I need to fill out CSS profile so that I get my financial package early. There are two options in the CSS website: 1. Fill out the profile for Fall 2015/Spring 2016, OR 2. Fall 2014/Spring 2015. Which one do I fill out?(3 votes)
- If you're planning to enroll in Fall 2015, which would be the typical pattern, you should complete the Fall 2015/Spring 2016 Profile. You can also ask the school to which you're applying to be sure.(2 votes)
- should you fill out the FAFSA if you dont know if you need financial aid(2 votes)
- That is a curious question. Curious in the fact that you should know if you need financial aid. Basically you have a few personal sources of paying for college.
a. You have savings.
b. You have a stream of income.
If you have neither you will need a third option. Financial aid is just loans (special loans usually backed by the federal government) and scholarships (essentially someone gives you X dollars or the school discounts your tuition). Sometimes the college will give you work as well.
The schools tuition is usually on their website. You also need to factor in fees (which recently have gotten quite high can be 1,000 dollars a semester some places).
So go to the website figure out how much it cost to go to college per year (plus living expenses if you do not plan to live at home) and multiply that by four. Also, include some interest per year (so raise the tuition by 4% a year). That should give you a raw number.
There are many ways to go through college. You don't have to take out loans or get financial aid. You can work while going to school. Which takes longer, but reduces (or eliminates) your debt load when you get out. I actually personally advocate for this model unless you are dead set on what you want to do, and what you want to do will pay you well from day one when you get out (think engineering).
Hope that helps.(4 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] We are here
today with Sean Logan, Director of College Counseling
at Phillips Academy. Sean, what I want to talk about today is, what are the forms that I need to fill out to get financial aid,
need-based financial aid? - [Sean] So the first
form that is going to be very important as it qualifies you for any kind of Federal
funds, is the form called the Free Application
for Federal Student Aid, the FAFSA. - [Voiceover] You said
that's the Free Application-- - [Sean] for Federal Student Aid. - [Voiceover] for Federal Student Aid. And, I take it, by the name, that this a form that
you don't have to pay. - [Sean] Right, and again, you want to be careful about that. There are several sites that
will happily charge you money to fill it out for you,
but it is really something that you can do and it's for free, and it's found at FAFSA.ed.gov. - [Voiceover] And what am I
going to find on this one? What exactly and I going
to be putting on it when I fill it out? - [Sean] So, what colleges are looking for is trying to get a sense
of the family's resources and how much they can pay towards college. The general rubric with financial aid is what can the family afford first, and then after that, what
federal funds might be available, what school funds might be available. So they're going to look at income, and this is a very much
an income driven form. And they're going to look at who lives where the student lives,
who lives in that house, and what are the resources of that house. - [Voiceover] When you say
the "resources" of that house, what exactly do you mean by that? - [Sean] So, the income,
assets that the house has, and so forth. - [Voiceover] And so, as a student, this might not be something
that I know or have access to, so what do I need to
do in order to be able to actually get this information? - [Sean] This form is really going to be a combination of the student
working with their parents, and there is a part on this
form that is for the student, and the student will
fill that out in terms of any money they've made, savings
they have, and so forth. And then there is another
part of the form that is for the person who is living in the house. If that is a husband and a wife, great, if it is just one parent,
whoever has the income of that house, they're going to look at that information as well. - [Voiceover] Great, and it sounds like given the level of detail that
this information requires, the parents may need some
forms and things on them while they are filling it out. What exactly do they need to have as they're filling out this form? - [Sean] So basically, the
sooner the parent fills out their taxes for the year,
they have their W-2s, they have their taxes,
that's going to make it much easier for them
to fill out this form. So, it's a lot of the same questions. - [Voiceover] When do students and parents need to be filling out this form? - [Sean] This form isn't available until after January 1st, but there is a pretty short turn-around time. Most colleges want this filled
out and turned into them probably somewhere
between February 1st and the middle of March. So this is a year where
if you know you're going to be going to college,
talk with your parents and let them know the
sooner they can get on top of their taxes, get those
done, the easier these forms will be to fill out. If they know they're not going to be able to fill out their taxes immediately, you can always use estimated numbers, or you can use last
year's numbers, especially if things haven't changed dramatically in your family's financial situation. - [Voiceover] And why exactly do I need to get it in so quickly? - [Sean] Again, these are the deadlines that colleges are going to have, and it's very important
to meet these deadlines. It's probably even more
important than meeting the admission deadline is
the financial aid deadlines, because most schools have
a limited amount of money and they're going to use that money based on the students they admit and the forms they have in. So, if you wait until
after you're admitted and find that out and
then send in your forms, they may already be out of money. So it's really important to
make the deadlines for these. - [Voiceover] OK, so once I
do have the forms filled out and I submit it, what happens next? - [Sean] So, all the FAFSA
does is use a formula that sort of crunches
your families resources and comes up with something called an EFC, an Estimated Family Contribution, and that is a number
that colleges will use to help them put together
a financial aid package. So all that number says
is, this is how much, based on the formula the government uses, how much they think the
family can contribute to their son or daughter's education. So, say you crunch those
numbers, you turn them in, and it comes back and says your estimated family
contribution is $10,000, a financial aid office will then say, well if we're a school that costs $50,000, the family can pay $10,000,
we're going to have to put together a financial
aid package for $40,000 for that student to make it
possible for them to come. - [Voiceover] And does the
information from the FAFSA go directly to the schools,
or does it go to the students, how does that actual
transfer process occur? - [Sean] So you will get
back something called a SAR, a Student Aid Report, and that will again give back to you here's all
the information you put in, and will also give you what your estimated family contribution is, and is also sent to all the schools that
you put on the form when you sent it in. The one thing to remember
is you can only put 10 schools on that list,
so if you're going to apply to more than 10 schools,
once those are submitted you go back in sometime after that, you can take some of those schools off and put the other schools
on there to make sure that everybody has the
information they need. - [Voiceover] So, I fill out the FAFSA, it spits out a EFC which
is sort of their estimation of what my family can
contribute, and that is part of the student aid report,
and that information gets sent to up to 10 schools and I can go and add more later, and
they get that information, and they're going to
put together some kind of financial aid package for me. And my family will contribute some amount and then the remainder
is made up through what? What exactly other things
could come from the school? - [Sean] A typical package
that a school puts together is going to have probably
three pieces to it. There's going to be
Scholarships and Grant money, which is good, that's money
you don't have to pay back. There's going to be loans,
and loans are things you will pay back over a period of time. And there will probably
be a Work Study Job, and that's a job that you'll
have during the school year probably somewhere
between eight to 10 hours, maybe upwards of 20 hours
depending on the school, that money you make
during the school year. - [Voiceover] And so I won't
get that financial aid, I can't even qualify for that
if I don't fill out the FAFSA. - [Sean] Correct. - [Voiceover] So, aside
from the FAFSA, Sean, are there any other forms
students typically need to fill out to get
need-based financial aid? - [Sean] Most public schools
only require the FAFSA form, other schools, a lot of private schools, may have their own internal form. - [Voiceover] In addition to the FAFSA? - [Sean] In addition, and
there's another form out there that's used by a lot of
schools called the CSS Profile, and that can be found on
the College Board website. - [Voiceover] And I'm going
to fill out the FAFSA, and I'm also going to
fill out the CSS Profile, and that's going specifically
to private schools, or more often used by them. - [Sean] More often, correct. - [Voiceover] What are some
of the differences between the Profile and the FAFSA? What additional information
am I going to be providing? - [Sean] So first of all, the
CSS Profile does cost money. There's a fee to sort
of fill out the form, and there's also a fee to
send it to different schools. There also are fee
waivers that are available for this, so you are able to again, do this without cost to your family. And the nice thing is
as you fill out the form it will determine if you
qualify for a fee waiver or not. - [Voiceover] Based on my family's income, that sort of thing, if
it's below a certain level, I'll be able to fill
out the form for free? - [Sean] Right. - [Voiceover] OK, so that
tells me, how much it costs. What actually am I, what specific, if you know some specific differences. - [Sean] Sure, so on the FAFSA form, that really is only
talking about the family the student lives with,
so in that sort of home. On the Profile, they look at the resources of both biological parents, so even if there is a divorce/separated situation, they are going to inquire
about both parents and their ability to pay, so
that's a very big difference. Another difference with the CSS Profile is again it's used a
lot by private schools for their institutional money they have, so they want a broader
picture of what's going on in the household, so
this takes into account things like, one of the big
things it takes into account is home equity, and how much money
you may have in home equity. - [Voiceover] And that means
if I put money on a house or own a house, that get's
counted in the profile, but that's not being counted in the FAFSA. - [Sean] Correct, so
again, sort of getting a broader picture of your
assets, a broader picture of what you're able to contribute. - [Voiceover] Ok, and are
the deadlines for the Profile similar to FAFSA? - [Sean] They're a little bit different. So the college deadlines are very similar, so again probably between
you know February 1st and the middle of March, so
those are pretty standard. But the CSS Profile is available in the Fall of your Senior year. And one of the ways these private schools use the CSS Profile, a
lot of these institutions have early action, early
decision programs for admission, so they use the Profile
as a way to give students a preliminary financial aid package. So if they are, again
remember in a early program, the deadlines usually November 1, usually you found out sometime in
the middle of December. And once you get the decision
in December, they also would like to give you
a preliminary package so you can determine, oh,
I've not only been admitted to the school, but I've
a package that will work for my family and myself. So you can use the CSS
Profile in the fall. That will obviously be on
last year's tax information because obviously this year's informaiton isn't finished by the fall. For both the FAFSA and the Profile, you will eventually
submit your current year tax documents and W-2s so they can verify everything that's on there. - [Voiceover] Great, we've got the FAFSA, which kind of gets me access
to Federal financial aid, and that's pretty much for all schools. - [Sean] Right. - [Voiceover] When I fill that out it will be after January 1st. I will get the EFC back
and that will go on to the schools I am
applying to as long as I specify them in the FAFSA. - [Sean] Correct. - [Voiceover] The Profile
isn't required by all schools. It tends to be used more
for private schools. They'll still require the
FAFSA, also require the Profile, in that case it may ask
some additional questions to find out about my home and
if I have additional assets like how much value is in my home. It might also ask about
if my parents are divorced what the parent that doesn't
live with us is making. And these are both to give private schools more information, but
also for early action, early decision, to let me
access that financial aid. - [Sean] Right. - [Voiceover] Great,
is there anything else that I need to know about
the FAFSA or Profile before I get started on these forms? - [Sean] That will get
you started, but again, the more organized you are
with your tax information going into that year,
the easier these forms are going to be. The other thing I would say
is financial aid officers are always happy to help
you with these forms. Use them as a resource.