EFC

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Answering Your Questions About The FAFSA

Answering Your Questions About The FAFSANow that January has arrived, it’s time for high school seniors and their parents to fill out the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is the form you are required to fill out if you want colleges to consider you for financial aid.

While families have their own unique circumstances, here are some of the top questions I come across this time of year and my answers which will hopefully help you along the way as well.

1. We make too much money, we probably shouldn’t bother filling out the FAFSA, right?

Wrong. Regardless of how much (or how little) you make, you should always fill out the FAFSA. Even if your EFC is very high, there are still non-need based loans like the Direct Unsubsidized Loan or Parent PLUS Loan which can help you spread out the costs. But, to qualify you must fill out a FAFSA.

2. How do parents who have joint custody and are both remarried with new spouses file the FAFSA??

When students come from divorced families, financial aid eligibility is based on the income and assets of the custodial parent. This is the parent who the student lives with for the majority of the year, even if it’s six months and one day. Even if the non-custodial parent has a considerably higher salary than the custodial parent, this parent’s income and assets are not factored into the federal financial aid eligibility calculation.

3. We’re going to have two kids in college at the same time, how will this affect our financial aid eligibility?

How many kids you have in college at the same time has a very big impact on financial aid eligibility. Consider that your EFC is divided by the number of children enrolled in college. If you have one child in college and your EFC is $40,000, then that’s what colleges would expect you to pay. If you have two kids in at the same time, the EFC will be $20,000 each. This is why it’s also important to file a FAFSA each year. Even though you may not get a lot with one child in college, if you have a second one entering a year or two later, you may end up qualifying for something.

4. We won’t have our taxes done until late March, can we just apply for financial aid then?

You can, but you shouldn’t. Financial is aid is very much a first-come, first-serve process. Additionally, some states like Connecticut have February deadlines for state grants which you don’t want to miss. If you wait until after you file your taxes, colleges won’t have as much money to give out as they would have if you had applied in January. File your FAFSA now with estimated income and then use the federal data retrieval tool after you file your taxes to update your information.

5. My daughter’s grandfather has put away money in a 529 for her which we plan on using this year. Since it’s his money and not ours, do we have to report it on the FAFSA?

Yes, you have to report any distribution from a 529. The more important factor here is that the 529 is owned by a grandparent and, therefore, may reduce your aid eligibility considerably. Where a distribution from a 529 owned by either parent is considered a parental asset, a distribution from a 529 owned by someone who is not the parent is considered student income. When calculating aid eligibility, student income and assets are assessed at a much higher level than parental assets so even though the intention is a good one, the outcome may not be helpful.

If you want some help and guidance on your college application and financial aid process, check out what other families are saying about Dobler College Consulting and then contact me today to set up an appointment for a free consultation.

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Eric Jan 06, 2014 , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Applying For Financial Aid

Applying For Financial AidIf your son or daughter is going to college, then you already know that you need to apply for financial aid. What you may not know is that there are two different financial aid applications.

First, let’s talk about the application everyone needs to fill out before we talk about the application some of you will need.

The FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It’s the application that is required by every college in order to consider and then award financial aid to your son or daughter. The FAFSA is free and while it will take some time to fill out, if you organize yourself ahead of time it will be much easier.

The FAFSA is a smart form which you will find very helpful. Based on the information you enter, the FAFSA customizes the questions so that you only need to answer questions that pertain to your individual situation.

While everyone needs to fill out the FAFSA, based on colleges you are applying to, some of you may also need to fill out the CSS Profile.

The Profile is only required by a couple hundred private schools in addition to some scholarship programs. Unlike the FAFSA, the Profile is not free. It will cost you $16 to register and then an additional $9 per school for each school to which you send the form.

Starting your Profile application is a two-step process. First, you must register. And you must do this in one shot. There’s no saving and going back, so get your documents and information together first, register for the Profile, and then complete the applications.

To help yourself out with the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, you will want to collect the following before you get started:

  • Student’s social security number
  • Student’s driver’s license number
  • Statements for checking and savings accounts
  • Copy of last year’s tax return and W-2’s
  • Statements for any investment accounts
  • Current mortgage statement (Profile only)

Both applications go live on October 1st so it’s important to start your financial aid application planning now. While the college admissions process is about to take center stage for the next couple months, it’s also time to think about the financial end of things. It can get complicated with college visits, prepping for the ACT and SAT, completing applications and looking at the financial picture.

If you want some help and guidance to make sure you’re doing it right, set up an appointment today for a free consultation.

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Eric Aug 28, 2013 , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Reducing The Costs Of College

Dobler College ConsultingIt seems like every time I go out to meet a new student and his or her parents, the thing we spend the most time talking about is college costs.

And it’s completely understandable. With costs rising at astronomical levels over the last couple decades, there are very few people out there who aren’t worried about how they will pay for college.

Consider that in 1993, when I graduated from Naugatuck High School, the average cost for tuition, room, board and fees was $24,504 for a private college and $9,513 for a public school. In 2012 those numbers increased to $39,518 and $17,860, respectively.

Let me do the math for you. That’s a 61% increase for privates and an 87% increase for publics.

And that’s just in 20 years. If you go back to 1972, the cost of a private school education has gone up 137% while it’s only gone up 124% for public schools. How’s that for sarcasm?

Once you pick yourself up off the floor, you can look up these numbers yourself on the College Board website.

The funny thing is that even though these figures are out there for everyone to see, I still see so many college applicants falling in love with schools that will be completely out of their reach financially. I hear things like, “we’ll figure it out” and “well, maybe I’ll get more money” when the reality is that they won’t figure it out and they won’t get more money.

What they will get is disappointment. Frustration. Anger. Resentment.

If you don’t want to get what they’re getting, pay close attention to just how generous or stingy colleges are with their money. Understand your EFC and what it means in the context of what a college may offer for you financial aid. And, most of all, make informed decisions.

I’ve written a few posts about these very ideas and if you haven’t read them yet, now would be a good time:

What You Need To Know About The Costs Of College

Why Some Financial Aid Offers Will Underwhelm

Why You Should Know Your EFC

You can trust Dobler College Consulting to help you navigate the college admissions journey. Give me a call now at 203.525.4096 or drop me an email to schedule a FREE 60-minute consultation to discuss your needs for college admissions counseling.

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Eric May 28, 2013 , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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What You Need To Know About The Costs Of College

Dobler College ConsultingI originally posted this entry back in February but as I meet with high school juniors and their parents, the conversation eventually comes around to talking about cost and how to know which colleges are more affordable than others. While the answer is subjective to the individual student and his or her situation, this post has a couple great ideas to help you figure it out how it could play out for you:

As you’re building your college list, there’s no limit to the things you will consider. Is your major a program at which the school is particularly strong? Is it a cool college town? Big time football on Saturdays? Is the campus safe? Is it clean?

Depending on your VIPS, what you are considering is specific to you.

But there is one aspect that you all think about.

And that’s cost.

Let’s be honest here, there’s nothing to like about college costs. They have risen at astronomical levels over the last few decades to the point where students are graduating, on average, with over $26,000 in debt.

And that’s an average.

Back in the late fall, I wrote a post about the difference between a college’s sticker price and the real price that families pay. I then followed it up with a post about understanding your EFC. If you haven’t read them already and don’t know what EFC is, take a minute and check them out and then come on back.

There’s a lot of things to cover in the college search, but if you don’t understand the costs of college and how to reduce them, you could be in for a big time let down next year when your financial aid awards show up. So, outside of figuring out your EFC, here are a few things you can do to help yourself:

1. Don’t pay attention to sticker price:

Look for net price and, specifically, the net price for families in your income bracket. If your family’s income is over $100,000 you don’t want to be looking at net price for families whose income is only $50,000.

2. Figure out just how admissible you are:

Based on grades and test scores, look at who the college admits. Then take a good, hard look at yours. Are they similar? Sort of? Not close? The easier it is for a college to admit you, the better (read BIGGER) your award will be.

3. Check out merit awards:

Some colleges publish the amounts and qualifications of their merit awards (free money) on online and the information is easy to find and understand. Your GPA and SAT score combination earn you X amount of dollars. Others, not so much. Look it up and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, call the admissions office.

Have something to say? Use the comment box below or email me at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com. If you think this makes a lot of sense, consider sharing it with someone you know.

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Eric May 05, 2013 , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
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Why Some Financial Aid Offers Will Underwhelm

Dobler College Consulting

Last week I talked about three things you need to know about the costs of college: your EFC, how admissible your son or daughter is and merit awards. If you missed the post, here it is:

What You Need To Know About The Costs Of College

Today I want to take that conversation a step further and give you an example of why it is so important for a student to know just how desirable he or she is.

When the conversation rolls around to how much aid a college is going to award, sometimes the more desirable a student is plays a significant role. According to NACAC’s 2012 State of College Admission report only 32% of publics and 18% of privates were able to meet 100% of each student’s demonstrated need.  The remaining colleges have to decide how to allocate their money and not everyone gets the same amount. If they did, every college would meet 100% of everyone’s need.

And we all know that doesn’t happen.

So what dos end up happening is that colleges have to choose which students get the most aid. To put it simply, the more desirable the student, the more aid they will be awarded. So what makes an applicant more desirable? It depends on the college and while you can’t know everything they are looking for in a given year, there are at least two things any applicant can easily figure out.

GPA and test scores.

Knowing what kind of grades and test scores you will need for admission is something you should seek out about every school you are interested in. You can find this information rather easily on the College Board’s Big Future website. As I talked about in a post I wrote in September called, College List Tip: What Are Your Chances, you will find a range of test scores, GPA’s and even class ranks. This is valuable information for any applicant to look at and understand. These figures are provided by the colleges themselves. They are real numbers and they will show you just who the college thinks is desirable and, therefore, who will receive the more generous aid awards.  Applicants should read them and understand them as they search for colleges.

There’s a big difference between a college A where SAT scores for Math and Critical Reading of 500 fall in the top 25th percentile and college B where those same scores fall in the lowest 25th percentile.

If an applicant has fallen in love with college B and is expecting a lot of aid, they are very likely going to be disappointed.

Have something to say? Use the comment box below or email me at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com. If you think this makes a lot of sense, consider sharing it with someone you know.

 

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Eric Feb 11, 2013 , , , , , , , , , No Comments