Will a family, that has a moderate financial contribution by fasfa standards, receive an increase in institutional aid if they no assets and way above average debt? Schools claiming to meet full need, will they just stick to the fasfa number? I have a fear that the css profiles are just used to raise the EFC above the fasfa amount instead of reducing.
So you are asking if “meets full need” is merely a conspiracy, that the CSS Profile is reverse engineered such that it enables colleges to just SAY they meet “full” need?
No. The colleges that require the CSS profile are the colleges that are the most generous. By definition, if a college is using the CSS, that college has more money to give.
That said, there’s no guarantee that YOU will receive institutional aid. It depends on your particular financial situation. By the way, personal debt does not factor into financial aid eligibility. It is ignored UNLESS it is for such reasons as medical debt or your house was destroyed in a natural disaster. Those types of things.
Pretty much every school that meets full need doesn’t use the FAFSA EFC to determine how much institutional aid to provide; that’s what Profile is for. And as pointed out, most personal debt plays no part in calculating need-based aid.
So, why the need for css then if they don’t take into consideration debts? It seems like fasfa paints a pretty clear income and asset picture? Why are private and some public wanting even a more detailed picture for institutional aid that will require applicants to fork out more money to apply to their school? The little bit of extra information css gleans seems arbitrary without the debt piece.
When it comes to schools giving out their own money (“institutional aid”) based on financial need, I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to ask for more details on the family’s financial situation than what’s required by FAFSA. For instance, FAFSA asks nothing about primary home equity; most schools that use Profile want to consider primary home equity in their institutional aid formulas, and Profile asks for that data. Profile does not ask about any other kind of consumer debt, nor should it. Why should the parents that choose to go into tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt to pay for vacations and all the latest gadgets be rewarded with more need-based aid for a child? They shouldn’t, and they must live with the consequences of their choices.
If you don’t like the Profile methodology or answering all the questions, you can always steer your child to colleges that don’t require Profile.
Consumer debt is not factored into the financial aid formula.
It’s a consumer choice
If the fee is a hardship, you can ask for a waiver.
You don’t think it’s unreasonable for applicants to spend more money to apply to schools, got it. The detail of home equity seems to negate your position of responsible spending. Effectively, people who have more equity will pay more. Those people with more equity would be people who have wisely consumed in your belief system. The people with less equity would be the ones that raided that equity for unnecessary consumption. The people with less equity will get more aid.
Not necessarily. You’re just saying things without knowing the form or the formula. Best thing is to use each college’s NPC to see how each college would treat your particular situation.
Another option is not to apply to colleges that use the CSS Profile or not to apply for financial aid at all. If you don’t like the rules, don’t play the game.
Home equity is looked at the context of the entire financial picture, not just a snapshot. And not all debt is considered equal. If you maxed out your credit cards for a liver transplant for your child three years ago and have struggled to pay that debt down, most Profile colleges will be happy to work with you to find more money. If you maxed out your credit cards because you like to ski every weekend during the winter and like weekends in the Hamptons in the summer, you won’t get too much flexibility from the colleges.
Go back and read my post; that’s most assuredly not what I said. I said that it’s not unreasonable to ask for more details on the family’s financial situation when it comes to the school handing out its own money. If the $25 submission fee for the first school and $16 for subsequent schools doesn’t fit in your budget, brantly provides an excellent suggestion.
Generally, people who have more equity will have more ability to pay. Is it a perfect system? No; there are too many variables with each family to make it perfect, but the details that Profile goes in to are an attempt to make it more fair.
- You know nothing about my "belief system."
- You're making huge assumptions about what the amount of equity a homeowner has says about their other financial practices and about the amount of need-based aid that a student will receive.