Having considered different ways for students to apply for admission over the past two weeks, we now need to examine the ways their parents or guardians might need to apply for financial aid in order to pay for college. Just as with applying for admission, those who are best organized will find applying for aid a better experience.
The first thing any parent or guardian of a senior applying to college needs to figure out is whether or not the family’s composition and finances will result in a determination that the family is indeed qualified to receive need-based aid. Some folks have too much cash to convince any college financial aid officer that they need more. They will be expected to write a check for the full freight. The way to figure out whether or not you might qualify for need-based aid is to use the calculators that exist on three websites that could be of great value to you.
The first website that anyone interested in applying for need-based aid must use is www.fafsa.ed.gov. (Not www.fafsa.com which will charge you a fee to fill out the FREE Application for Federal Student Aid.) www.fafsa.ed.gov is the home of the so-called Federal Methodology (FM), required by all colleges and universities in assessing a family’s demonstrated need. While the FAFSA form cannot be filed until Jan. 1 of the year in which the student will enroll in college, students and parents can create their account and get their PIN number right now. They can also use the FAFSA 4Caster to get a sense of what their likely Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) is going to be. Given that the FM is a fairly blunt object, it is a good idea to be sitting down when you read your preliminary EFC: the number may be a whole lot higher than you believe you can afford. Don’t faint standing up.
Ugly as the result may be, the reality check may be just the smelling salts you need. Of course, there are people whose family composition, income and assets will result in an EFC of 0. This reality is why especially well-endowed colleges (such as those represented by our September visitors to St. Thomas–Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Penn and Stanford) will tell families that incomes below $60,000 will result in no parental contribution whatsoever. Whether you’re Full Pay, No Pay, or somewhere in between, you need to know what college is likely to cost, because most families do not pay full sticker price. You need to know what you’ll be expected to contribute.
The next website that parents and guardians may need to use is www.collegeboard.com and in this case the CSS Profile. More of a scalpel than the FAFSA, the Profile is required by many private colleges and universities that want more information on a family’s circumstances and resources before assessing need. The FAFSA, a simpler form, does not take long to fill out, once you know what you have made in the current calendar year. The Profile, on the other hand, asks many more questions and can be quite a challenge to fill out. The good news is that not all colleges require the Profile, and the better news is that—if your senior is applying to colleges that do require it—you can start filling it out as soon as you finish reading this column. I urge you to get to it ASAP.
The other website, www.stratagee.com, is not a requirement for anyone but a recommendation that might be helpful to those who will not qualify for a lot of aid, but who might be better off long-term by developing a sound financial strategy to get all the bills paid, and the loans paid off, in the most cost-effective way possible. The key features of www.stratagee.com are powerful software tools developed by a financial planner named Troy Onink, who writes for www.forbes.com.
Finally for now, those interested in receiving help with financial planning for college are urged to circle their calendars on Jan. 11, 12 and 13. On those evenings at 7 p.m., financial planner Brad Baldridge will be speaking on each of our three islands (On the 11th at Antilles School on St. Thomas, and on the 12th and 13th on St. John and St. Croix respectively, at locations yet to be determined. ) If you want to learn more about Brad’s work, check his website: www.baldridgecollegesolutions.com.
As you can see, if you want to figure out how to pay for college, you have a lot to do. Get started!
Chris Teare is the College Counselor at Antilles School on St. Thomas. His radio show, “Making The College Choice,” airs Wednesdays at 4 p.m. on Radio One, AM 1000, WVWI. Call with questions at (340) 774-8255.