Some Ivies give much more aid than FAFSA suggests.
See article about Harvard and Princeton.

- quote -

Our kids went to college a dozen yrs ago, and our FAFSA applications
didn't amount to anything for us. Bottom line is that, if you
successfully save and invest money for the future, your kids will
probably not qualify for college financial aid. The best you can do is
hope they get academic scholarships and maybe loans that THEY can pay
off in the future. Now, at least, there are grants based on passing
state standarized tests and other tax perks for college tuition
payments. These have come into existence SINCE our kids went to
college, so we didn't even have those benefits.
Also, we compounded the problem by saving the kids' college money in
their SS#'s (to lessen the tax bite). Ha! That was even worse with
regards to qualifying for FAFSA. Furthermore, any child over 18 can
get their "college funds" out and spend it on whatever they have a
whim to, no matter what parents have saved it for. Fortunately, our
kids didn't, but we had a couple scares along the way. Never think
that YOUR kids will not go crazy and wipe out their college accounts.
My advice is to bite the bullet & pay what you want to. Make your
kids work during summers/weekends & plunk some money down themselves
so they appreciate it all. They can take out a few loans too.
College costs have gone up much faster than inflation. It is my
opinion that state universities are much cheaper and it is not worth
the money to go to an Ivy League school for an undergrad degree. If
your kid can commute from home to a community college for a year or
two, you can even save more. It all depends on the attitude of your
child and how much confidence you have that they are ready.
One more thing--check out their career choice before you spend lots of
money putting them thru school--don't give them money to major in
business or psychology, etc. It's hell when your kid comes back
home with degree in hand & can't get a job. If they have flaky
academic skills, a trade or vocational program is best.
SandyBeth

On Dec 26, 6:05*pm, Mark Bole <ma...[at]pacbell.net> wrote:
- quote -

letter of acceptance, without FAFSA involved.

pixel_a_ted wrote:
- quote -

I don't have detailed answers to all your questions, but I do know from
personal experience that even if the student is not eligible for
need-based financial aid, some private schools will still give you an
"atta-boy" (or girl) scholarship, just as an incentive to attend, I
guess. For example, a private school with $26K annual
tuition+room/board gave one of my children a "President's Scholarship"
each year that was good for $6K off the bill, and I think the FAFSA
application was a prerequisite to get it even though it wasn't really
need-based, along with maybe a certain grade point average (don't recall
all the details).

While I found the FAFSA application annoyingly and unnecessarily nosy
about various areas of finance, I don't think there is really much
downside to filling it out, after all these days much of your financial
life isn't really "private" any more what with bank mergers, credit
bureaus, direct deposit and electronic bill pay, Patriot Act reporting,
and so on. Your data is lumped in with thousands if not millions of
other peoples, so I don't think you're likely to attract any special
attention. At least they don't ask for specific account numbers and
such, just total dollar amounts by category.

Usually it's just friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers who we
don't want to have knowledge of our finances -- strangers are fine! ;-)

-Mark Bole

Everybody seems to encourage you to go through the FAFSA (Free
Application for Federal Student Aid) process even if you don't think
you will qualify for any need-based financial aid. I hate to give out
any unnecessary personal financial information, so I am hesitant to do
this especially as I don't think it will result in anything.

I've gone through the calculation of EFC (Expected Family
Contribution) online and it comes out high enough to basically cover
the cost of the colleges that my child is considering. I am near
retirement age, I guess a little older than the typical college
parent, and may have higher salary and assets than the typical
applicant.

So I guess I have a few basic questions:

1. Is there really any point to do the FAFSA in my situation?

2. Does each school get to see all of the details of the FAFSA
application, or do they just get summary calculations, such as EFC?

2. If there were to be any need-based financial aid, would it most
likely be in the form of a loan (which I would not be interested in)?

3. How do I locate a financial advisor in my area that specializes in
college financial aid? I might want to do a sit-down with someone just
to get a calibration of my understanding of the overall process.

Thanks.