Once upon a time, the fabled council of the College Board joined together and asked themselves, “how can we best convolute the already frustrating financial aid process with a supplemental, unnecessarily tedious application?”
If FAFSA is a mild pop quiz, consider the CSS Profile a final exam you never studied for — only instead of solving a function, you get the privilege of attempting to rationalize why colleges think your parents’ 50 percent home equity is a spare bank account.
Administered by the same peachy folks who make high school students pay to stress over standardized testing, the CSS profile is designed to help determine a U.S. student’s eligibility for non-federal student aid. While I must admit that it offers a significant opportunity for many students, including myself, who qualify for large grants at schools with need-based aid, it is simultaneously an obstacle course that brings about levels of life-choice-questioning frustration.
Let us start with the painstaking demand for details. Come on, you’ve waited all your life to air out your family’s entire financial laundry to an audience of judgemental Ivy League accountants! I wish I was lying when I said the CSS Profile wants everything, which includes, but is not limited to: home equity, small business income, whether your parents have ever found a 20 in their coat pocket, and that one time that your sister chipped her tooth. Oh, and are your parents divorced? Congratulations! You now need to hunt down your non-custodial parent for their financial information. Don’t talk to them? Doesn’t matter! You’ll figure it out somehow.
Well, at least in the same way that the government understands what I’m going through, what with applying for financial assistance and all, the CSS Profile won’t set me back. Wait, you’re telling me I have to pay $25 for the first school that I send an application to, and $16 for each additional one, even though the content is exactly the same? Could you imagine going to a food bank and being told you need to Venmo them first? That’s some logic you got there, ever so gracious, non-profit College Board! Great thing fee waivers exist for unicorns with Pell Grants.
Unlike the FAFSA, the CSS Profile doesn’t follow federal guidelines or regulations, either. This means that the same percentages and savings holdings you report can be reinterpreted in a variety of ways by different universities. I call this the Super Fun Level of Unpredictability About Potential Financial Return Offers. Remember that home equity we once spoke of? Some schools count it, some don’t, and if your family owns a house, you probably shouldn’t bother applying.
Keeping with the theme of no standards, CSS deadlines vary by school, which means the onus is on you to keep track of what universities have deadlines and when. Some are due in early November, others in January, and many new deadlines love to appear out of thin air. If you miss it, and you’re anything like me, that simply means that the university becomes a no-go. Colleges have zero chill on this and give no extensions. Wouldn’t it be crazy if they compiled a list of deadlines as a resource on the website? Let’s not get too greedy now and ask for one standard deadline. Baby steps.
A scavenger hunt, designed by people who have likely never had to worry about tuition, the CSS Profile is expansive, invasive, and restrictive to the very groups of people it supposedly aims to benefit the most. These counterintuitive barriers could and will continue to have legitimate consequences for those who are unequipped with information before critical deadlines and are unable to pay their way. It is nothing other than the hideous love child of a tax return and a standardized test. So I ask please, no more, College Board. You take my money, my time, my sanity; don’t take my future.
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