Quick Financial Aid links before I get into the gory details
- FAFSA website https://fafsa.ed.gov/
- CSS Profile Institutions: https://profile.collegeboard.org/profile/ppi/participatingInstitutions.aspx
- CSS Profile: https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/
- CAL Grant Verification Form: http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/gpaform.pdf
- Scholarship Websites: https://www.fastweb.com/ or https://www.cappex.com/scholarships/
- Student Loan Calculator: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml
This is how the financial aid process works. 1. You (the student) must complete the FAFSA using your social security number based on income tax information. The parent with their own social security number will also have an account to electronically sign the FAFSA and match filed tax information. It opens October 1st. 2. Within a few days the student will get a Student Aid Report (Called SAR). 3. The SAR will contain the Expected Family Contribution (Called EFC). 4. This number is important because colleges use this number to determine how much money a student will get. For example, an EFC of $10,000 means the federal government thinks your family can contribute $10,000 this next year for college education. Some colleges meet 100 percent of need. This means that if your EFC is 0 and your student is accepted to that college, you will not be required to pay anything. If your EFC is $10,000 and the college costs $52,000 to attend your family may only pay $10,000.
Some families will say to me, “We won’t qualify for need based financial aid so why bother?” For schools that do not meet all need, they use the EFC number to create a financial aid package. That package might include scholarships or grants (which are free money that do not need to be repaid) or loans (which will need to be repaid). Very few colleges will still offer a merit-based scholarship (for high GPA and strong test scores) without completion of the FAFSA. You’ve perhaps unintentionally sent the message that you want to pay the full price and colleges are happy to allow you to do so. It’s also an insurance policy. If someone loses a job or becomes disabled before the student begins college, the financial aid package can be reevaluated. This can only happen if the FAFSA was completed. It also must be completed every year.
This next part differs by the financial aid offerings in your state. If a California resident plans to attend college in California, she should list at least 1 California College in her first 3 schools on the FAFSA. The FAFSA allows you send the Student Aid Report to 10 colleges. By indicating a California college, she may also be eligible for a Cal Grant. Once she has done the FAFSA, and it has been processed, she can get the paperwork done for the Cal Grant (this is free money from the state of CA). The verification form is here http://www.csac.ca.gov/pubs/forms/grnt_frm/gpaform.pdf Most high schools are required to submit electronically, but not all have the resources. The student should check with their high school counselor. Even though the Cal Grant has a March 2nd deadline, I would not wait that long to complete it, most colleges send out financial aid award letters much sooner. If you are curious, here are the income thresholds for the Cal Grant http://www.csac.ca.gov/facts/2017-18_income_and_asset_ceilings.pdf
If the FAFSA weren’t complicated enough, some schools require additional documentation for financial aid consideration. It’s the CSS profile. The list of colleges that require it can be found here https://profile.collegeboard.org/profile/ppi/participatingInstitutions.aspx To complete the CSS profile (do this after the FAFSA and only if a student is applying to one of these schools. The CSS profile is located here: https://cssprofile.collegeboard.org/ Just like the SAT, you must pay for the report to be sent to each school. You might look at the threshold for Cal Grant and not want to bother with the CSS profile. This would be a mistake. They serve different purposes. While the FAFSA is just based on income, the CSS profile takes context into consideration that allows many of the private colleges to give more aid than one might expect. While you might not qualify for the Cal Grant, do not dismiss the CSS profile, if required. It can result in greater institutional aid from the university.
Once these major financial aid forms have been completed, encourage your future college student to apply for scholarships. This is free money from outside organizations. No legitimate scholarship organization charges you at any time! Popular sources include fastweb and cappex. College financial aid websites often have university specific scholarship information with separate applications and deadlines.
After a student has been admitted to college, they will receive a financial aid award from the university. This award will indicate grants, scholarships, and/or loans. Some letters will come with admission but most come months after and more and more schools only have the information accessible online. February and March are popular months with a National deposit and commitment date of May 1.
Most folks have loans as part of their college packages. They can make education possible for many of us. There is also sensible debt. I like the Student Loan Calculator: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml It will give you an idea of what your monthly payment will be and what you will need to earn to afford it. It is helpful to consider before you take on debt.
I encourage everyone to complete to FAFSA as soon as possible. Be sure to check deadlines, if a student is applying Early Action or Early Decision, the school might have November 1 or November 15 financial aid deadlines. For some schools this means they need to have received the information by those dates. Be forewarned: completion of the FAFSA on the last day might not suffice. As complicated as this process is, the good news is most information automatically imports when you complete it again next year. It does get easier!
