Did You Opt-Out of Completing the FAFSA?
Only 37% of families sending a child off to college are completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Even if you think you are not eligible for any kind of aid, things change. I think everyone that is going off to college should fill it out. There is no downside, and it is free after all.
You might just find out that your student is eligible for some kind of grant or scholarship after all.
Automatic Merit-Based Scholarships & Grants
Many schools have merit-based automatic and semi-automatic scholarships and grants that have nothing to do with financial need, but instead have eligibility requirements based upon merit including grades and test scores, however, they are distributed to students based on their completion of the FAFSA anyhow.
If you and your student didn’t complete the FAFSA you might be giving up thousands or tens of thousands of dollars each year your student I in school.
Can you really afford to give up all that free money?
Do you really want to?
Circumstances Can & Do Change
And don’t forget that circumstances change. You might have something happen while your child is in school that would change your economic status like a job loss, divorce, or death, or even something outside your control like Covid or a recession.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to have that history of completing the FASFA to show that change in circumstance to a financial aid officer at the college and have them take that into account to potentially give your student some financial aid they were not previously entitled to?