The FAFSA/CSS-PROFILE trap

3togo
Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:13:09 +0000

The point is that the numbers generated by the FAFSA are precisely the source of the gap. Relying on the unreliable is the problem, not the solution.

I don’t think this is leading anywhere, unfortunately. It seems to be degenerating into circularity or worse. See my original post: The FAFSA can produce distorted results bearing no relation to reality.

Leonard, I’m not sure what you are expecting from replies to your postings … but from my perspective I can tell you why I can not provide any meaningful comments. You have asserted many times that the FAFSA EFC is distorted or unreliable but have given not information about why you believe it is distorted in your case. In the past when people have raised issues about their EFC they usually raise one of some common disagreements with the FAFSA calculations … for examples … how FAFSA treats the equity and income from family businesses, or the treatment of money saved for retirement but not in retirement accounts such as a 401k, IRA, or 403B, or expectation that equity in real estate assets be tapped. If we had an idea of the basis of your disagreement with the FAFSA EFC estimate I believe the discussion would be much more focused and hopefully more helpful.

To be honest in the past there have been few cases where the FAFSA EFC seemed distorted to me (usually involving family businesses) but usually they are cases where the applicant and there family believe a much higher percentage of their income and assets should be protected from college expenses … and I think this argument has a lot of validity but I wouldn’t describe that as distorted or unreliable … on the contrary the FAFSA EFC calcualtors seem to be very predicable and consistant … it’s ususlly seems to be a question of not agreeing with their assumptions about how much schools expect a family to contribute to their kids college expenses.