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Navigating the Hidden Financial Risks of College Life
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Colleges and universities that use the CSS Profile to assess eligibility for financial aid are often overlooked by families because they think the schools are too selective, too expensive, and too stingy with aid.
Unfortunately, many college-bound students and their families are avoiding these Ivies, small Ivies, public Ivies, and an assortment of small, private colleges to their own detriment. Yes, many have sticker prices in the high five figures and many are selective, but that paints an incomplete picture. Let’s take a closer look at some of the myths surrounding CSS Profile schools.
The CSS Profile, or College Scholarship Service Profile, is an online application that students can use to apply for non-federal financial aid from colleges and scholarship programs. The College Board creates and maintains the application and it’s required at many CSS Profile schools to be considered for financial aid.
The CSS Profile is more detailed than the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and allows institutions to ask more specific financial questions. For example, the FAFSA excludes home equity as a factor in federal financial aid, but the CSS Profile includes it.
Many college families believe that their child, with a 3.5 GPA and an average SAT score, won’t have a chance at a selective CSS Profile school.
Another persistent myth among middle-income families is that the schools in this category are way too expensive. This certainly appears true when you check out sticker prices averaging about $70,000 a year, with some approaching $100,000 a year,
Families that have done some homework on their college planning point out that CSS Profile schools assess their home equity to determine what they pay for college, and that the $300,000 equity in their home will blow a hole in their budget.
The most prevalent myth, however, is that any family with a six-figure income won’t get any aid -- especially because these colleges don’t give out much merit aid.
Now we’ll look at these myths one by one.
“My kid will never get accepted because of their low admittance rates.”
Yes, all of the private, public, and small Ivies are as a rule very selective. However about one-third of the participating institutions accept 40% or more of their applications, and a few have acceptance rates as high as 90%.
“These colleges are way too expensive.”
This is not true for most middle-income families because many of these schools fill 100% of the gap between their Student Aid Index (SAI) calculation and the Cost of Attendance (COA), with majority of that aid in the form of gift aid that doesn’t have to be paid back. And many of the schools that don’t fill the gap do provide generous merit scholarships.
Families that benefit include those that will have more than one student in college at the same time during some of their college years. In those overlapping years, even families with incomes over $200,000 a year will typically not pay much more at a school with a list price of $70,000 than they would at their own in-state university. What’s more, the FAFSA updates for the 2024-25 year no longer provide families a break when they have two or more kids in school at the same time.
“They will assess my home equity.”
While this is true of many CSS Profile schools, it is not true of all of them. Neither Stanford, nor Harvard, nor the University of Chicago, for example, consider home equity when working up an award letter. Furthermore, some colleges have lower assessment rates, while still others put a cap on it.
Bottom line: Many middle-income families will actually reduce their costs at colleges that use the CSS Profile.
Another reason to not overlook CSS Profile schools is that more institutions are adopting it. Thirteen colleges were added to the CSS Profile’s participating institutions list this year. Though two of these schools (Arkansas State and Arizona State) say on their websites that submitting the CSS Profile is optional and/or only required for domestic non-citizens, the others either require or strongly encourage families submit it to determine their eligibility for additional need-based financial aid.
Take time to do your homework and get an accurate estimate of your actual college expenses beforehand. Don’t skip over the more than 250 colleges on the CSS Profile List. The extra work, and often uncomfortable additional financial detail required, may be well worth the investment of time and effort.
Chandani Rao is COO of My College Planning Team, which offers free college planning educational workshops hosted by high schools and libraries across the country. Free 30-minute college planning sessions are also available to parents interested in reducing college costs at a best fit college for their child. For information and some great free resources, visit www.mycollegeplanningteam.com.
