My understanding from reading about the most generous schools is that families EARNING 300K per year-even with ZERO assets - get nothing (except loans, if u think that is aid, I don’t) for 1 kid in college. And that is at the most generous schools… It goes downhill from there.
If college is unaffordable for a student without education loans, how are the loans not financial aid? Sure, they need to be paid back, so they’re not the same thing as a scholarship or a grant, but this money provided in most cases by a third party that can make college possible sure looks to me like financial aid.
Doesn’t matter whether you call loans aid or not–if the kid needs them, the FAFSA needs to be filled out. So do that if you want/need loans.
Lol, you are right to be skeptical! I wish that were true…
Remember that there is both merit and need based aid. You might not qualify for need-based aid, but qualify for merit aid.
It’s interesting the OP mentioned the folks were from the state in the original post. Is it possible that the OP’s state offers merit aid and the application for that state aid is through FAFSA? Like in GA or FL?
There are also some private outside scholarship organizations as well as schools that require recipients to file a FAFSA to be eligible for merit aid. They want to make sure all avenues are being pursued.