Potential full pay families applying for Financial Aid at Need Aware schools?

Paying for College
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I’ve newly joined the forum so I apologize if this question has already been clearly answered/topic discussed. I couldn’t find it directly in my searches.

In essence, I’m trying to figure out how applying for financial aid might impact our kid’s chances (including in ED round) at acceptance at need aware schools she is interested in. TLDR: We don’t “need” aid as of now (though paying less is always good), but think there are good reasons to apply, but don’t want to apply if it means our daughter is meaningfully less likely to get into the schools she wants to go to that we can currently afford. I explain more below.

My kid is a rising senior (H.S. class of 2026) and is interested in a number of private colleges that are need aware. I’ve done a few of the net price calculators, and for the most part they indicate that our current situation does not make us eligible for financial aid. To be clear, if everything stays the same for us, we can afford to pay for any of the schools she’s interested in (thanks to 529, two good salaries, etc.). But, events in the country do not give us confidence that things will necessarily stay the same and there are some reasons why it seems like it may make sense for us to apply for financial aid even if we likely are not eligible for anything under our current financial circumstances. I will explain and then would love to hear thoughts on this topic.

First, why do I mention our current situation several times? I recently experienced my federal government job attempted to be “downsized” by the current administration (the whole thing is in litigation on behalf of all in my agency whose jobs were slated to be cut), so I’m keenly aware of how quickly circumstances can change in terms of income. Fortunately, I’ve found a new position in the private sector, so my income is not lost, but there is a lot of uncertainty that comes with the current climate as I move into a new organization. In addition, my spouse’s area of work is also under attack by the federal government. And while her position is much more secure (tenure), the landscape is murky enough to give real concern for at least some of her funding that could result in a change in income down the line depending on what the administration decides to do. So, the first reason why we are considering applying for financial aid is in case there are changed circumstances where we may require it down the line.

Second, in an ideal world, we may want our kid to be able to take out some federal loans (or even get work study if that is something she could theoretically be eligible for) so that she has some skin in the game in terms of decisionmaking and balancing choices and costs. Or we may want to be eligible for loans ourselves. I’m honestly not yet sure this is a strategy we want to employ, but it is a reason we’re considering the notion of applying for financial aid - loan eligibility.

Third, while I said above we do not need financial aid for her to go to the schools she wants to given our current situation, we are not so well off that money does not matter. And, it seems at least possible that the NPCs are off enough or our understanding of who gets any aid is wrong enough that there could be some money, or work study, or something that she is eligible for and I don’t want to miss out on money that we should get simply because we didn’t ask. I think it’s more likely than not that we are not eligible for anything, but the uncertainty makes me wonder.

Finally, on the flip side, we want more than anything to not unnecessarily harm our daughter’s chances at going to the school that is the best fit for her and that she is excited about. We don’t want to ask for aid we’re unlikely to get if it will materially harm our daughter’s chances of getting in, but we frankly do not know how to assess how harmful asking is likely to be (or on the flip side how likely the scenarios out of our control are that would lead to a significant change in financial circumstances).

If anyone has insights on how to evaluate applying for financial aid at need aware schools as a likely full pay family I’d greatly appreciate the insights and dialogue.

Thank you.

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Applying for aid at need aware schools won’t impact chances; needing aid will. If they determine you don’t need aid, it’s like you never applied for aid from an admissions standpoint. The FA office doesn’t wait until admissions makes decisions; both offices are working in parallel.

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Exactly. At need aware schools the admissions officers can consider your level of financial need, and what the school would need to provide to you. If you don’t have financial need, then the school would not need to give you a dime. The admissions department would know you aren’t needing any money for their school…so simply applying is a non-issue.

But I have to ask…if you don’t qualify for aid, why are you applying? There are a very small number of colleges that put restrictions on those who don’t apply as incoming freshmen. Most don’t.

If you are looking for your student to be able to take the federally funded direct loan, you can complete the FAFSA after you make a matriculation decision.

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We are very similar to the OP.
D26 will not get any aid- but we expect Daughter to take out some small loans (and a few scholarships, even if not need based, require the FASFA filled out)
For some reason I did not even think about just waiting to apply until after acceptance!!! LOL- it is the little things like this that make me really appreciate the CC forums :slight_smile:

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@co2mom the scholarships might require a FAFSA be submitted when applying…and might even have an early deadline. So check your colleges for info about that.

It’s just the federally funded aid where the FAFSA can wait.

For anything college related, please check the deadlines on EACH college website, and adhere to those!

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First of all, thank you for the response. I thought I laid out in the original post the reasons we are thinking of applying. And, I’m new at this, so that is part of the reason for the questions. But, I thought I heard somewere that at some schools, if you don’t apply for financial aid at the outset, and then circumstances change (one of my big concerns), that you will then not be eligible to get aid later. This may be rumor and ghost story (as I haven’t looked into it at this point), but that was one of the background assumptions. Your point about applying after being admitted is not something I had thought of and would have to look more into if that would solve my concerns beyond the loan piece.

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It’s not rumor or ghost story, but it is uncommon, and is something you can check on a school-by-school basis. Schools understand in general that family financial circumstances change in both directions, and would prefer to not lose current students when possible.

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I’ve suggested in the past that folks do file for financial aid…for just this reason. And it’s fine if you do that. But since you have NO need now, even at need aware colleges, this won’t matter.

And as I mentioned, there are some colleges that have restrictions on applying for institutional need based aid if you don’t apply as an incoming freshman. But not very many. So do check your student’s list of colleges and see. And this restriction does NOT apply to the federally funded Direct Loan.

@kelsmom can verify…but for federally funded Direct Loans, your student can complete the FAFSA any time during the academic year as long as sufficient time is allowed for this to be processed by their college before the academic year ends.

And they can apply for the full $5500 Direct Loan…during the second term even if they didn’t previously apply.

So…you can wait and see if this is actually needed.

Everyone who completes a FAFSA is eligible to take the Direct Loan.

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This is correct. (@thumper1’s post above)

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@ECCA2026 if you think you might need institutional aid this year, apply for aid when your student applies for admission (following each college deadline). You have no need right now…so this should not affect admissions.

BUT then if needed, you will have on file your old income, and can submit a special circumstances review request which will have your new income status…and the change.

You can contact the college where your student matriculates and ask what their procedure is for a special circumstances consideration (which is what you will file if you lose your job). The school will tell you what they will expect in terms of documentation. And they will give you their timeline.

We had this issue when our kid was a college freshman…and his college did not even look at these things for 3 months…because during that time the parent could get a new job. But we knew what we needed in the event we needed to apply. And we had everything…but then DH found a new job.

So…ask your student’s college.

Another thing you should seriously consider is looking for colleges with significant merit aid. Merit aid doesn’t take your income or assets into consideration, and will remain stable even IF there is a loss of income.

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I was going to post to mention merit, so just consider this doubling down. I also agree you do not need to worry about merely applying for aid when it turns out the college determines they won’t give you any. But I do think the potential answer to a lot of the OP’s concerns may be to chase merit.

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@thumper1 @kelsmom and @movingtothebeach, thank you all for these responses! Really helpful information. You all have shared more in a couple of hours than I was able to figure out on my own by googling things over the past few days. The animating factor for us really is the reality that has been thrust upon us on how quickly our circumstances could change (which I suppose was always true, it’s just explicit now). Knowing that so long as our circumstances stay the same (knock on wood), just applying for financial aid won’t hurt our daughter’s chances, and getting the application on file could be useful (or at least neutrual) should things change between when she applies and end of her first year, is great information. Also good to know, no decision on the daughter taking out loans piece need to be made in the short term. Even if I learn nothing else from this forum (seems unlikely), this post and your responses were worthwhile. Thank you!

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@NiceUnparticularMan and @thumper1 Thank you both for the merit recommendation as well. That is a good piece for us to think about more. She does have a few schools on her list that her school counselor mentioned might give her significant merit aid (Agnes Scott and Whittier we were told it is highly likely, with good chance at Lewis & Clark and possibly Oberlin as well). We are visiting some of those this summer to get a better sense about how excited she is about applying to them. On paper, we all really like Agnes Scott College, which is great.

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Another option to consider is applying to universities that are likely to be relatively reasonably priced without any need based financial aid. For example you could focus on in-state public schools and schools that have good merit aid.

Our kids “skin in the game” was to pick schools that fit our budget, and keep their grades up. We had a somewhat unusual situation in that one daughter ran into two schools that she could not afford based on our budget limit, and then later she switched her major to something that these two schools just do not offer (we got lucky).

Caution seems to be a good idea considering the uncertainty that you described in the original post.

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Hugs to you. This is indeed a stressful time to have a child applying to college!

What I observed back in 2007/2008/2009 during the financial crisis:

Some colleges were VERY sympathetic to changes in circumstances and were eager to respond to a family’s need for aid.

Some colleges were marginally helpful.

Some colleges just don’t have the funds to help families who get caught in a cash crunch during their kids college years.

And it’s hard to predict sometimes which college goes into which bucket. I think planning on loans- if needed- to fill the gap is a solid plan. I think being transparent with your kid (“hey, let’s find three merit aid colleges to add to your list! we may need to shift our strategy!”) is a solid plan.

Take a look at your 529 or other college savings plan NOW and make sure that you aren’t over-invested in volatility. You don’t want to be in a position where your income is down AND your college savings plan has hit a trough at the same time. And although we made it work (mostly due to our cautious investment strategy) we did have a job loss with two kids in college and it worked out in the end but was monstrously stressful for a while.

Good luck… and thank you for whatever it is you do for our country… we need dedicated public servants and their expertise, now more than ever.

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@DadTwoGirls Thank you for this thoughtful response and explanation of how you framed the skin in the game piece. We are definitely considering reasonably priced schools/those highly likely to give substantial merit aid to my daughter. Unfortunately, state schools here generally are not the best fit for what she is looking for and/or how she has tended to learn best for one reason or another. For most of them, size is one of the big factors in that. That said, we have kept UC Santa Cruz on her list precisely for this reason, as they have things broken up into smaller colleges, which is helpful (UCSD does too, but it’s off the list for other reasons). And, Whittier and Agnes Scott or schools where her counselor believes she will likely get significant merit aid, so those should fill that role in a different way. I agree with you though, caution seems prudent for us. The good news is, we’ve been transparent with our daughter about our situation so moving from that general awareness to connecting it to college planning should be smooth, we just have to do it this summer. Thank you!

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@blossom Thank you for the kind words! I have loved being a public servant and am sad that I likely will not be able to serve my fellow citizens in that way any longer, so I am grateful for your appreciation. Your thoughts and tips are also quite helpful, particularly as we think about how to tie our situation to the college search (we are fortunate to have very open communication with our daughter so she knows what is going on with the attacks on both of our work and is incredibly supportive). And on the 529, great minds think alike, we already did jus that, reviewing the allocation to make it much more conservative. Thankfully, we did that before the recent ups and downs of the market so didn’t shift at a valley.

Lastly, I’m glad to hear you made it through your job loss situation with two kids in college. I can imagine how stressful that must have been given how stressful our situation has been for us.

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What is the desired size? Would (for example) UC Merced be too large?

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As she starts looking at schools she can sort things like size, cost, majors. Sometimes it seems like a big school is too big to a 15 year old but it becomes more exciting to a 17 year old when they find a program or major that is excellent in the middle of Iowa or Washington. Or people here can suggest schools that might be cheaper but still attractive to her. No, it probably won’t be Stanford or MIT, but there are hidden gems all over the country. One of my kids went to a school we’d never heard of 3 months before she applied. The sticker price was shocking to me but we found some merit, some need based aid, some state aid, and a bigger athletic award than we’d hoped for.

My other child had to give up a lot of things she wanted in a school because of cost considerations, but it worked out just fine for her for undergrad and grad school. Don’t be afraid to set a budget you can live with if you do have job disruptions. If it turns out things work out even better financially than you hoped for and you do a less expensive school planning for the worst, you can pay for study abroad or an internship one summer or help with getting that first job or grad school.

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I agree with all the thoughtful posters here (and I am so sorry for the uncertainty in your positions right now).

It sounds like you are in CA, and are considering LACs and merit aid. Have you looked at Whitman? They offer the early financial aid guarantee, in which the admissions and finical aid office will provide you with the minimum guaranteed amount of aid your student will receive if they are admitted. For looking at merit aid alone, the student only need provide:

  • An unofficial copy of their high school transcript
  • Their senior year academic schedule
  • SAT/ACT scores (optional)

(For those requiring need based aid who would like an early reply, prior to the ED deadlines, families submit the CSS Profile on October 1.)

For merit awards alone, students can self report their SAT or ACT scores, and ask their high school registrar for a copy of their transcript (typically they will just email you a PDF, or your student has a copy of it from the end of the junior year). They also may self report (or have the registrar forward them a copy of) their expected senior classes. The senior classes don’t need to be a school day schedule, but simply a list of what they will be taking in 12th grade.

For merit aid alone, the admissions officer makes the decision and no other materials are needed.

Your student can submit these materials beginning June 30th if they are a rising senior, and they’ll receive a guaranteed minimum amount (which will be awarded all four years) within a few weeks.

My S23 submitted his materials the summer before his senior year, and when he received his reply, the number was such that I said the budget worked if he wanted to apply Early Decision—which is precisely why they offer this early financial aid guarantee—so that those that require a certain amount of merit or need based aid are on the same footing as those who do not when it comes to deciding to apply.

p.s
He applied ED, and had his acceptance that December. He happily just finished his sophomore year there. :slight_smile:

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