Academic Scholarships and the FAFSA

Paying for College Scholarships
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Hi all! This is my first thread initiation on the CC fora, to which I am utterly new (having newly registered here within the hour). That the reader may have a bit of context supplied for my unusual question of this thread, bit about me: I am a bit older than the mass of college matriculants in the West, having had, by any possible estimation, a very unusual life. I have no college experience or even a secondary school diploma, having but a secondary school GED at this point. However, I have always had a profound love of reading in particular and of the life of the mind in general, and I have noted over the years that I have found fault with the intellects that have been made apparent during my interactions with other people, such that I have often experienced feelings of being “smarter than others”. Surely, evidence of that might be found herewithin; you will no doubt find that my writing is far ahead of the pace of that of most American high school seniors, and there is no AI assistance here (I have read more than enough of first rate minds like those of John Locke, Bertrand Russell, John Rawls, various other modern and not-so-modern philosophers, as well as such wonderful prosaists as jane Austen, the incomparable George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, E.M. Forster and the exceptional comedist P. G. Wodehouse
why would I need “Chat GPT” when I have already had such tutors, the writings of which tutors and those like them have undoubtedly served as the very models for that vacant intelligence??) Without doubt, as a result of said feelings and observations, I find myself possessed of an intense desire to try my hand at formal education, and plan to enroll in a community college for the upcoming academic year, with the hope of allowing the processes of formal education to carry as “far” and as “high” as my personal ability recommends.

The particular question which has prompted me to appear here at present, has to do with the relationship between the awarding of academic scholarships and the FAFSA, which would seem a mere restatement of the question “how do college financial aid offices utilize the FAFSA?” presently, I should state a couple of things: firstly, that pursuant to much observation of and thought about the American social milieu, I am personally a somewhat “anti-government”/“anti-nationalist”/“anti-statist” type of fellow (I would characterize myself as, perhaps, a “strong Libertarian” from the political standpoint, though certainly not an “anarchist”, which is an utterly foolhardy position to take), and would like to keep the government out of my affairs as far as is possible; secondly, that I have a bit of money saved, enough to get me through community college to an AA degree. Resultingly, I do not currently intend to file a FAFSA during my community college career, but I would like to have some feedback on this decision. Is there any reason that I should file a FAFSA while in junior college?

Actually, in my own mind, since there has been a great lapse of time between my leaving high school as, essentially, a “runaway” and the present juncture, I intend for my community college experience to act as a stand-in for my abbreviated secondary school career in forming the basis of an application to a baccalaureate program within the best school to which I can be accepted. I am wondering if I can be considered by top schools like the “big 3 ivies”, Wharton-Penn, Stanford, MIT, etc., for academic scholarships without having filed a FAFSA. Say that I graduate from “Lovely County Community College” with a 4.0 GPA, a listing in “who’s who
”, stellar recommendations from several professors all avouching a newly disclosed brilliance, and the like, can I at all hope to be offered a “full boat” from a school like Harvard without having filed a FAFSA, or is that instrument used as a means of verification of income and assets by admissions and financial aid departments? Can the lack of a FAFSA be overridden in the mind of a school by sheer academic excellence, or (assuming that I can, indeed, display such excellence
by no means a foregone conclusion!) should I plan on filing the FAFSA at the future point of applying to baccalaureate programs?

Thanks in advance for any help that I can have in gaining an understanding of these college admissions/aid processes, which appear ever mysterious, especially to one whose life experience has been like my own!

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Are you older than 24? If so, you will be considered an independent student, if not, your parents would also have to file FAFSA.

Only reason I can think of is if you want to bank the federal direct student loans, $5.5K 1st year, $6.5K 2nd year. If you are an independent student, add $4K per year to those amounts.

Many ‘top’ schools only award need based aid (including the 3 schools you mention). To be eligible for institutional need based aid at these schools you must file FAFSA and CSS Profile. If you won’t qualify for need based aid, no need to file either form (unless you want to take the federal direct student loans which require filing FAFSA only.)

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These schools give need-based aid / scholarships only, and they use FAFSA and another form called CSS Profile to determine whether to give it and how much.

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Yes, quite a bit.

One principle that I will adhere to in going forward with this is that I wish to avoid loans entirely. As I say, I can pay for the associate’s degree on my own; for the real deal, I will want scholarship(s), preferably to the tune of full tuition. I plan to adhere to this to the extent that a failure to so achieve might make me seek another “two year” degree, and then try again


Thank you.

I must assume that this is because admissions offices wish to avoid the footwork (and the expense invariably associated therewith) that verification of financial information demands, would that be right? I wonder why else an applicant might not forward the verifying bank statements and other documents directly to the school in question. Personally, I find the CSS Profile, being an instrument of the College Board, less detestable than such a government instrument as the FAFSA. A rather pointed query: is FAFSA in any way mandated by law for college students? If I intend to avoid federal aid, which generally (exclusively?) takes the form of loans, may I simply create the CSS Profile and disregard the FAFSA entirely? How would such a taken measure be viewed by the staff of admissions and financial aid offices?

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Yes, but can the CSSP be employed with out the FAFSA? Not that I have anything to hide; I’ve been homeless for large chunks of my adult life, and correspondingly poor (pursuant to significant childhood trauma). One might wonder, “what is it with this guy and the FAFSA?” As you might suppose from reading my statements above, I am rather a thinking man, and inclined to the formation of philosophical positions. My problem with FAFSA lies in a such a philosophical position; I simply feel that government handles far too many things
has far too much of both responsibility and authority within our culture, and I would seek in my own small way to marginalize the government’s role in the life of modern, Western man as I am able.

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If you think you would be eligible for a full-ride at Harvard, et. al., then federal aid would also involve a Pell Grant
and Harvard wants the Pell money from the feds before they start handing out their own money. No exceptions for libertarians.

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Truly? I think that a Pell grant is “a drop in the bucket” where the bucket in question is the Harvard annual tuition. Given Harvard’s famous endowment, I wonder why they might even care about that “drop”, if landing a great student might be at stake.

Thanks for a very pertinent answer, though!

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Yes, but Harvard wants the money from the Feds, if a student qualifies for a Pell Grant.

If you want someone else to pay for your college, you have to follow their rules. Here are Harvard’s requirements to apply for financial aid, which for US citizens require FAFSA plus CSS Profile:

The process to apply for financial aid is essentially the same for all prospective students. Regardless of your citizenship or when you are applying, you will need to submit a CSS Profile and an IDOC Packet.

US Citizens and Permanent Residents will also need to submit the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is a free form and if you only wish to apply for federal aid it is the only form you need to submit.

The instructions below are for the 2024-2025 school year. The application can generally be submitted starting October 1, 2023, but may open a couple days before this date.

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All of Harvard students are considered to be great students otherwise, they wouldn’t get into Harvard.

I think there’s a little bit of information you need to understand.

A large number of the universities depend on federal monies for their research and costs of doing business. The universities are businesses first and foremost. There’s no free money. They pursue grants/fellowships from agencies like the National Institute of Health, NASA, etc. that are funded by the federal government. The universities must maintain statistics on the number of students that are funded via the federal government (FAFSA) and meet Federal guidelines which are meant to be inclusive of everyone- all ages, colors, genders, etc.

There are only so many times that a large donor will donate a building. Even Harvard wants to continue receiving funding from the government and its alumni.

Daily operations are expensive. It’s a business! Full rides are very rare now.

Financial aid packages are inclusive of any funding they can procure. Most of those financial aid packages are comprised of federal funds and loans.

So, you should expect to save money to pay those fees not covered for your educational expenses, if you don’t plan to ask for any funding from the government.

Top 10 schools are running between $60k to $90K a year. You can only ask for funding at the beginning of your university experience. If you try to ask later, it’ll be too late.

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You may be anti-government but if you’ve ever held a job and seen your pay stub (deductions for payroll taxes, etc.) surely you care that there is a modicum of oversight over how federal (and for that matter, state and local) taxes are used.

That oversight- at least for the purposes of Harvard’s financial aid- is FAFSA and compliance with the “rules of the road”. My local library (a non-profit) gets federal funding for some of its programming (a grant for the computers which it provides, free of charge, to people who have neither a computer nor internet access at home), gets state money for other programs (clinics to help people apply for various entitlement programs), etc.

These grants are a drop in the bucket in terms of the overall budget of the library. But taxpayers have a right to know- and demand- that the audit committee of this non-profit oversees and completes the required filings and forms every year-- drop in the bucket though they may be- to make sure public money is being spent according to the requirements and regulations.

You can be an educated libertarian, you know. You want someone else to pay for your education, you’re going to need to fill out the form.

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You are not right. This is so these colleges know whether a student will be eligible for any portion of the Pell Grant, which can be used to help fund the costs for that student.

Your first post is very confusing. I’m going to try to summarize an answer


  1. You need to complete ALL required submissions for financial aid t every college to which you apply. If you don’t complete everything (FAFSA included if required) your financial aid application will be incomplete and you won’t get an award
at all.

  2. Places like Harvard and the like are highly competitive for admissions. So start there. With acceptance rates in the single digits, you cannot count on an acceptance. You won’t get their generous need based aid unless you are accepted.

  3. Some colleges allow stacking of need based aid and merit aid (if they award merit aid). Others simply do not. At some places, a merit award will decrease your financial need and therefore your need based award.

As I stated above
if a college says they require the FAFSA and you don’t complete it, you won’t receive any aid package at all
because your application for aid will be incomplete.

Many CSS Profile schools use the IDOC service, and there you are required to upload your signed tax returns, and any other info the school requests. It’s not like you get a bye on providing tax information because you do the CSS Profile only.

At need aware colleges, if you don’t have a complete financial aid application form, the school will justifiably believe you can be full pay at their school. The admissions dept will see that you actually haven’t completed a financial aid application form.

The financial aid office won’t calculate a need based aid award if your application is NOT complete.

NOTE: you could apply to colleges where you get merit aid only and no FAFSA or Profile forms are required at all for the awarding of merit aid. But you might not find one that will fully fund your costs. If you want info about schools, look for the chance me info and do a chance me thread with your information, etc. Folks will give you suggestions.

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If you are an international student, this is absolutely correct. If you are applying to a need aware school, this is probably correct. For other colleges, you would need to check their policies for U.S. citizens. In a handful of places, you can’t apply for need based aid in the future if you didn’t apply as an oncoming student. For merit aid, please understand that except for departmental scholarships, most merit aid is awarded to incoming freshmen.

I hope these posts are helping you
because really
I’m not sure what you actually want to know!

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Note that OP said their intent is to attend CC for their first two years of college, then would transfer to a four year school. Generally, financial aid is less for transfers than incoming first years at many schools. Meet full need schools still will meet full need for transfers, but as others have stated, meet full need schools tend to have low acceptance rates.

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Yes, of course. that is why I am asking questions now, at such an early time. Apparently, Harvard requires FAFSA and an IDOC, Brown doesn’t universally require the IDOC, etc., etc.; there appears to be a certain amount of variation with respect to individual schools. What this means to me is that when it comes time to apply to baccalaureate programs, I should just go ahead and file the FAFSA and complete a CSS profile.

Yes, thank you, bea, I am aware of that, and the more tech-oriented the school the more pronounced this phenomenon.

That’s something of an overstatement, and if I use such language it’s just me being hyperbolic. I’m not exactly “anti-government” in much the same way that I am “atheistic” without being “anti-theistic”, if you can appreciate the distinction. As I find deity a rather abstractive conception, I recognize that the nation-state is no more than an utter abstraction, existing only within the human mind, and as such, I feel that the state, through the primary substantive expression of said abstraction, government, has (over time) assumed too intrusive a role in human life for the abstract type of thing that it is, literally regulating nearly all human action in society. In my mind, government has valid purposes, but they do not extend that far; I especially oppose governmental intrusion within the domestic realm. I hope that I haven’t given the impression that I utterly oppose the existence government, which I find necessary to a culture in a world of technological nation-states. But, this is all off-topic, so


Your’e right! In trying to give some background about myself so that you all would know what type of person you are dealing with , I bollocksed my introduction a bit. You have given good value, though, despite all that.

Tanks much. A lot of good information here. I have not been exposed to the term “chance me”. I will search the site for more info.

That is good to keep in mind, and serves to engender yet another question. Ultimately, the field in which I would like to work will demand quite an eclectic set of skills, so the two year degree will not be “wasted time” even in such a case. I think that I might need the extra coursework in order to build the proper foundation for what I would like to do, especially as maths, one of the skill areas to which I allude, is one field within which I have not engaged in a great deal of exposition. I wonder, since I am many years past “high school”, and am working with a GED, if I might use the experience leading to an associate-level degree as a replacement
a type of “stand-in” for my high school experience, and then apply to baccalaureate programs as a first-year student? If the answer to this is “yes”, then would I want to sit for the SAT as I approach the end of my studies at the communtiy college? My situation is unusual enough, and the type of career that I would like to avail myself is so very unusual for a man of my age (it generally being considered to be a “young man’s game”), that I am very unsure of how to approach my intended effort.

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Exactly. (if you need financial aid)

Nope, CC counts as college not HS. If you take even one college class at any institution of higher ed, you will be considered a transfer student at many colleges (policies vary and you can check each college’s website.)

Are you a US Citizen or permanent resident? Are you sure you need a college degree to pursue a job in the field you want to work?

Regarding taking an SAT, it generally doesn’t make sense for people out of HS. With that said if you are applying to a test required college, you might contact them and ask what you should do, making clear your age/HS grad date/experience since HS.

Good luck to you.

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Yes. I would suggest filing the FAFSA for all colleges, and completing the Profile in addition for those that require the Profile. And if IDOC is used
complete that also.

If you need financial aid, best to cover all your bases.

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Read here to find out how to do a chance me thread.

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“I’m not exactly “anti-government” in much the same way that I am “atheistic” without being “anti-theistic”, if you can appreciate the distinction.”

Just a quick note since you are new to CC- most of the parents on here are college educated, and our reading comprehension skills are very well developed. I took the leap of faith that if you want to attend a US institution of higher learning you are not as “anti-government” as you implied, given the role of government in our system of higher education.

There is Hillsdale- for students who don’t want ANY government involvement in their education. And then there are a few thousand other institutions.

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These colleges do not give academic scholarships. They give need based aid only.

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And Thumper, thanks for jiggling my memory-

OP- Wharton is a terrible place if you’re looking for “life of the mind”.

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