Wifey and I just finished ours 2 days ago and now got our tax return so have to update it. so silly to have to do it twice. we’re getting better at it but looking forward to not having this annual task anymore
Glad I escaped that problem. 
It is a pain in the butt. I did my daughter’s and then updated it with my 2015 taxes but I noted that according to the rules it’s supposed to be the student filling it out. Really? A 17-year-old is supposed to be able to do it?
The CSS profile is much worse than FAFSA!
I filled out my FAFSA all years. My parents just handed over their documents. I never understood the big deal but our tax situation is pretty simple.
Very small price to pay for the federal aid I received.
Yes, complete pain. And the deadlines are stupid. Why can’t they align it with Apr 15? Or just use prior year?
What annoys me even more is that the FAFSA and the FAFSA estimators ask different questions. Not sure why.
FAFSA was a trip, and every year they seem to ‘improve it’. The actual form is not that difficult to fill out, but to get to the form takes some doing. Originally they had this ridiculous pin number, that seemed to be designed to not work, then they decided to change it to a username based on your email account (which is okay), but they also decided that I couldn’t use my parent account to submit it, which you could in the past, so I had to create an account for my son and do it. Given that many parents will do the FAFSA, they may not want the kid to see their tax information and so forth, it was kind of stupid.
And yeah, the feb 15 date is also a pain in the neck, given that a lot of people may not be able to file before that date, I usually end up doing the estimate, then fixing it after i do my taxes. The big irony is we know we won’t be eligible for federal aid, other than loans, but the school requires it for the nominal merit scholarship he gets, it would be nice if we could simply click a box that says “we aren’t eligible for federal aid, won’t be taking out loans”, rather than have to fill it out. The only good side it that once you can log in there, the actual filing is relatively easy.
Odd man out here…I never felt the FAFSA was difficult to complete. Just took time.
The key is…do your taxes ASAP after Feb 1 and then do the FAFSA a few weeks later (works for returning students…probably not entering freshman deadlines). Then when you do the FAFSA, you link to the DRT first…saves a ton of time!
FASFA was an easy thing for my H. to do for many years so that our D. could decline her FA every single year. But got to do i just in case…
Our FAFSA never took me more than 30 minutes. It’s easy.
I HATE it so much. It ends up being a production for H and me every year, usually due to password/pin/etc troubles. Hopefully third time is a charm as they say.
Our financial planner, who has an MBA and a JD, says that the forms are so ridiculously complicated that he encourages all of his clients with college age kids to outsource the FAFSA and CSS Profile. (Apparently, there are people who do these for a living.) He himself would not fill one out. That says something.
I’m in the same boat as @musicprnt where you have to go through the exercise of completing the FAFSA and CSS Profile to prove that you’re NOT eligible for aid! I understand the schools wanting to get Pell grant money to offset some of the merit scholarship for those kids that are eligible, but seriously - can’t I just send in a pay stub to show there’s no way my kids are getting federal aid?
I didn’t find the FAFSA that complicated - TurboTax actually spits out everything you need to put in - my problem was the early deadlines for incoming freshman and the problem of not having everything I needed to do my taxes until after the deadlines. So I had to estimate, then do my taxes, then update.
I agree that the password/pin issues are much more of a headache to me than the forms.
Your financial planner is wrong. These forms are not hard to do…especially after taxes are done.
Is he drumming up business for friends?
No, he actually doesn’t maintain a list because we asked. I think this depends on how complicated your finances are. I don’t know anyone who would agree that the forms are straightforward.
Yes, if the tax form is simple, it is a no brainer. It does not take a million dollar income to have a complicated tax return.
I simply ignored requests to fill out any forms. My big fat tuition check have never been rejected - things must have changed since then if the schools are shaking this info out of full-pay folks.
Our taxes are pretty complicated and I didn’t find that the FAFSA took more than 1/2 hour. It is really pretty straight forward. One year when we did our taxes late I had to estimate and then correct it once taxes were done. It was a very straightforward thing and only took a couple of minutes. I would worry if my financial planner didn’t feel comfortable completing one.
@BunsenBurner- Some schools require a FAFSA to consider a student for a school academic scholarship.
^^^ Yes, if a student receiving merit aid could also be getting a Pell grant, schools want that money. So you have to complete the FAFSA even if it’s a meaningless exercise.
I see. So glad mine doesn’t!