At what income level would you say the FAFSA is a waste of time?

Paying for College
41

Just ask a yes or no question: “At your school, is the FAFSA required in order to be considered for merit scholarships?” If you don’t receive a clear answer, firmly and politely request a yes or no answer.

42

For the one school where my daughter got merit and it required us to complete the FAFSA - we did the FAFSA after she got admitted (it was EA). The merit award notice said you must complete the FAFSA to receive this award.

43

I can add to this thread now that I have more information.

  1. My son is looking at six colleges that offer some merit aid. We called every admission office to ask, and only one of the six wants us to submit the FAFSA for our son to be considered for merit aid. The other schools said no financial info is necessary for merit aid.
  2. We have one child. I am a public school administrator and my husband is a psychologist who works primarily in nursing homes. So we are not crazy rich but evidently we are rich enough. We ran the NPCs at two of my son’s potential colleges that have among the highest endowments and that promise to meet 100% of any student’s need... and the result said we would get $0 in financial aid at either.
  3. So, we are submitting a FAFSA only to the one school that requires it for merit, and, on every application that asks, we are checking off the box that we do not need financial aid. And we have opened a home equity line of credit as protection, just in case we need to use it. Seven or eight years of education, undergrad and grad, should drain all our resources. Who knows— maybe we will qualify for aid after a few years as our savings dip due to paying for college.

(Note: We would be in the light purple in 17-18 on the link in post #18. But we still don’t qualify. Maybe we did TOO good a job saving money for our child’s college education… from the first days of our marriage, before we even had a child!)

44

It doesn’t surprise me (and I guess shouldn’t surprise you) that with parents who have a combined AGI of $230k+ and one child, your son will probably not receive any need-based aid, even at most high endowment schools that pledge to meet 100% of need. Doing a great job on college savings is a very good thing, and it will apparently allow your son to send out his applications without financial constraints. Many other parents would love to be in your situation.