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CSS PROFILE

College Planning After a Divorce

Students whose parents are divorced have some planning opportunities if the exes are willing to cooperate. The first step is of course to understand the planning areas. And the first step of that first step is to understand a key definition: “custodial parent.” Custodial parent is used in two primary places for college purposes, and in ways that are completely…

FAFSA vs CSS Profile

I write a lot about the FAFSA, but there’s a second financial aid form that’s also important: the CSS Profile. While all schools use the FAFSA to allocate federal funds such as Direct Student Loans, a subset of schools– primarily private schools– use the CSS Profile in their financial aid calculations. There are a few key differences between the two…

Negotiating a Financial Aid Award

I hope that everyone is home, safe, and washing their hands a lot! Yesterday we learned that bacon is not being hoarded, at least not in Portland, when out of the blue we got a notification that several week-old online grocery delivery attempts were going to be filled. The one item that was not out of stock in any of…

What Year? (2020 Edition)

It’s hard keeping track of what matters when in the prior-prior year world of the FAFSA and CSS Profile. Here is a table summarizing tax year and asset dates for the next few college years: School Year 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023-2024 2024-2025 2025-2026 2026-2027 FAFSA/ PROFILE Income Tax Year 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Assets As Of Oct*…