What’s the logic for doing it? We won’t qualify either. D has received merit from several state flagships and privates without us submitting, so I’m assuming that it doesnt link to merit. Am I wrong?
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I believe it is needed if your kid wants to do work study or get any sort of student loan. I could be wrong though.
If they don’t need any of that stuff then I guess it is not needed. With it being so much easier though you might do it just to make sure.
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Our college stated that if you don’t file FAFSA/CSS for freshman year, you are barred from filing in a subsequent year. Since anything can happen in life, I thought it was prudent to do it.
We did it today, and it took 3 minutes to do S24 and maybe 4 minutes to do the parent one. Then started S24, and it was even faster since it was the same few questions.
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I “think” D24’s FAFSA is complete. It appears to be processing. I need the SAR for a scholarship application. When we follow directions to access that, it looks like she hasn’t started or completed the FAFSA. I’m giving that some time because it seems like the processing is likely to take time.
I fell into that trap with my first two … embarrasing use of precious time. I vote NOOOOOOOOO. 
Instead, consider monitoring the career/volunteer services website or reading about how recent grads found paths to happiness.
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Do you need tax returns, w2 etc or just SSN?
Whether or not one should submit a FAFSA varies a lot from 1 college to another. We won’t qualify for any federal student aid, but D24 is submitting a FAFSA anyway for a couple of reasons:
- 1 of the colleges she applied to gives you an automatic $500 institutional grant for submitting a FAFSA, even if you don’t qualify for need-based aid.
- we might decide to require D24 to take out a small student loan.
- the private schools she applied to require you to submit a FAFSA if you want a chance at any other college-based/institutional grant money.
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For the FAFSA we only needed the following info (we are married):
- S24 - checking/savings balance
- Parent - checking/savings/cash balance (includes value of real estate other than primary residence)
- Parent - non-retirement account balance
Couple of things I found interesting
-
it did ask if more than 1 student in college (no info just a number of total students)
-
one only needs to include 529 which that student is the beneficiary- which is completely different than in past years, and different than CSS. So a 529 which the beneficiary is another child, is not listed. I find this puzzling since it is so easy to switch beneficiaries - someone is going to play games with this.
Other than that you need SS numbers.
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Just for giggles, try picking a different state to see if it lets you at least proceed past the error. Then try going back and correct it.
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Thanks. Big help. Seems worth it if it can pull other data direct from IRS.
I googled that exact question yesterday about needing to fill out the FAFSA. Apparently a small number of schools out there will not award merit unless they have a FAFSA on file which was surprising to me. My daughter is chasing merit and applied to 17 schools, so I am going to fill one out just to not worry about that issue popping up later on.
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@shmom41 - you don’t need to input income from the most recent W2?
We won’t qualify for any aid either. Is applying to FAFSA a requirement? Is there any way to indicate to the school that we will be assuming the whole cost of attendance without having to go through the FAFSA process?
There is no requirement to submit the FAFSA. In the college’s Questions section, check “No” to the one asking if they are applying for financial aid.
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We aren’t doing FAFSA, and will not qualify for aid, so we just checked “no” on the common app when they asked if we were applying for FA.
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Excellent. My daughter must have picked that option when she was applying. I got an email from one of the schools she applied to which was reminding of FAFSA deadline which made me think that maybe they consider her application incomplete. Thanks for the quick response!
She can check in Common App to see what her response was. Our experience, with multiple kids, is that it is common for colleges to email financial aid reminders even if you aren’t applying for aid. As long as she checked no, all is well.
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WashU and Cal Tech have fee waivers if anyone wants to apply.
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I don’t see a reason for my D/us to fill out the FAFSA.
She applied to
- in-state publics: affordable, will qualify for zero need based aid
- out of state publics: affordable with merit, do not offer need based aid to OOS students
- private: only affordable with merit and maintained income, if crazy stuff happened that meant we were actually eligible for need based aid, D24 would still have to transfer because even with meeting “need” it would be unaffordable.
We are donut hole, so we will cover the cost with her college fund (plus some amount from current income), or it can’t happen. She will not be taking out loans for undergraduate studies, so we don’t need that capability unlocked.
D24 thinks we should still fill it out just in case, but I do not see the “just in case” scenario.
ETA: She has already received merit aid from two of the OOS public schools without the FAFSA.
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No, for the FAFSA, the system pulls up your 2022 tax return and gets all the pertinent info. So you do not need to input W2 information.
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