Location a factor for financial aid?

robinsuesanders
Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:26:38 +0000

Does the CSS Profile perhaps give more insight into a families financial situation such as cost of living in a specific location?



The CSS Profile does NOT ask about the location where a family lives. Nor does it try to adjust the the so-called institutional method EFC found on the college board site’s FA Estimators to reflect different costs of living in different regions.

The CSS Profile does give more insight into a family’s financial situation in the sense that it asks a * lot more * questions about such things as equity in your primary residence and more detaild information about certain kinds of investments and retirement stuff. * For many people, the typical institutional method used by colleges that use both the FAFSA (for federal aid) and the CSS Profile (for institutional grant aid) comes up with an EFC that is ** higher ** than the FAFSA EFC.*