Ask an Expert All Your CSS Profile Questions

Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: [00:00:00] Okay. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Julie Shields Rutina, and I'm the Director of College Planning, Education, and Training at MIFA. And tonight, we have with us our guest presenter and expert on all things CSS Profile, Mike Goodwin, who is the Assistant Director of Financial Aid, Financial Services at Williams College.

And we're going to have. Sort of a question and answer format for Mike. I know we have so many questions about the CSS profile as you're completing it, and we've been answering them at MIFA, but what better than to have a real expert who is using this all the time with students and families. So what I'll say is that I will be behind the scenes.

So we're going to start off with Mike's sort of managing the questions as they come in, and Mike will be answering them for us. And I am going to [00:01:00] start myself by asking Mike a couple of overview questions, and then we'll get into the nitty gritty and the details. webinar will go from six, uh, 630 to 730.

And if by chance, your question doesn't get answered, please know that we will compile the answers for anything we're not able to cover. And we'll send that out to you tomorrow, uh, when we send the recording. So does that sound good? Mike, do you want to, do you want to say a few words about, about your.

Your job in Williams and or anything.

Mike Goodwin: Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, so I work at Williams college. Those who don't know or familiar with Williams, we're right in that corner of Vermont and New York as far Northwest as you can get, um, literally a mile from Vermont and five miles from the New York border, uh, it's a premier liberal arts college.

Um, I work with families primarily. I work with a lot of student athlete families. Um, and do a lot [00:02:00] of work with us. Obviously, this is his profile because we use that for all our aid that we give out, um, and do a lot of work with our net price calculator, which we'll talk about later on, but helping families get a sense of an estimate of what they can expect when they apply for financial aid and what the cost might be.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So, Mike, someone is Made a comment and I just want to make sure it's okay that there's too much echo. So I guess I just

Mike Goodwin: I

Julie Shields-Rutyna: don't know but i'm going to see if that person could let us know is that still the case And i'll look in the q a and see if I can

Mike Goodwin: I try using the airpods. I don't know if that would make a difference or not.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Okay, a couple of people said All good here, and no echo, no echo sounds okay.

Mike Goodwin: Okay.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So, I think we're going to have to go with that. Alright, thanks so much. So, Mike, [00:03:00] I'd say to start, can you just let people know, what is the CSS profile form?

Mike Goodwin: Sure, yep. So, when you're applying to colleges, your students will fill out the Common App.

The Common App is, um, the widely used tool that you fill out one application and it goes to all colleges. Common App is put together by a company called College Board. College Board also puts out what's called the CSS Profile. There are two applications you'll fill out when applying for a financial aid for colleges.

One is the FAFSA, which everyone's familiar with. If you follow the news, follow all the ups and downs with that last year and the trials they went through. And the other one is the CSS profile. The profile is used by 300 or more colleges, universities across the countries, maybe different agencies to, to actually get a profile of your family's, um, I call you family's economy, your family's income, their assets, [00:04:00] um, and the different, um, ways for students, for our college to get a sense of.

What can a family afford on applying to college? It's a, um, there, there's a CSS profile and some colleges use what's called a CS profile light, which is a shorter version. Um, but again, it's, it's just used to get a better sense of your family's economic, um, income and assets in order for them to give the best aid package they can give.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thank you. And how, how would a student or family know whether their college requires the CSS profile or just the FAFSA?

Mike Goodwin: Yeah, that's a great question. The best place to start is right on your college's website. The schools that your students are looking at, um, go to their website and then, you know, look at their financial aid, um, website, web pages, and that should tell you that they are a CSS profile school, um, or just a FAFSA school or both.

[00:05:00] Um, most schools would be both if they, if they do have the CSS profile, they don't want the FAFSA as well. And we'll talk about why probably later on, we talk about federal aid. Um, the also, if you go to the CSS profile website and you, there's a, uh, page that you can go onto and you can search the schools and if your school is there, it means that they, they accept the CSS profile.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And you brought up a good point there. Um, as far as schools, colleges being able to make the best award, and especially given that the FAFSA is delayed this year. Can you talk a little bit about that and the CSS profile being open and for early decision, early action type programs, how people can get started fairly early on their application.

Mike Goodwin: So the CSS profile is used primarily by private institutions, private colleges who have the. Endowment who have that money that they use to give out their [00:06:00] institutional aid. Um, having said that there are some universities who rely on the CS's profile as well, in order to get the, again, that best look at a family's, um, income and assets.

Um, I'm sorry, Julie, I I'm talking and I totally forgot what you asked me now.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Well, just more about the fact that they can kind of get started on that right away. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah.

Mike Goodwin: So, um, the FAFSA. It will not be available until December 1st, and they're still kind of working through some of the issues from last year.

If you're applying early decision to a school that requires the CSS profile, it's a good way to get started and start filling it out now. Um, when, much like the FAFSA, when you fill the CSS profile, Your student can list the schools they wanted to go to. If they're applying early decision, the idea is that they're applying to one school, and that's the school they're going to go to if they're accepted.

So they, on their profile, should just [00:07:00] be that one college. Um, what's nice with the profile is you can go back in and add schools. The cost for, um, the profile is 25 per school and 16 per additional college that you add to that. However, if Family Earns has a adjusted gross income of less than 100, 000, then those fees will be waived, um, which, which is great.

Um, if your student had a SAT waiver, fee waiver, and they took the SATs, you're automatically waived. Um, and if you meet the means test regarding your income, uh, it'd be waived as well. So a lot of ways to, for families who, who are concerned about that cost of filling out the form, depending where your income is at, for the most part, many families are going to see that, that this fee is going to be waived.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Before I get into, I see we have a lot of [00:08:00] questions lining up, which is great, but one of the questions we get a lot, because it's different than the FAFSA, um, where with the FAFSA, uh, If students parents are divorced or separated, it's, you know, one parent, the one who has provided the most support, files that FAFSA with the student.

Um, and then the other parent does not have to file the FAFSA. But it's different with the CSS profile. So can you talk about how to complete the CSS profile, um, if the student has parents who are divorced or separated?

Mike Goodwin: Certainly. Yep. And this is one that we deal with this regularly with families. So when you fill out the FAFSA, if parents are divorced or separated, And the parent who offers the most support, so say is remarried, that stepparent is expected to provide their income information as well, because it's the household that's responsible for paying for the student's [00:09:00] costs.

CS's profile is different in that if a parent are separated or divorced, The philosophy is you can divorce your spouse, but you can't divorce your child. So, when a student fills out the CSS profile, they will fill it out with their custodial parent. Or, what profile likes to do is keep it similar to the FAFSA, so they'll fill it out with the parent who offers the most financial support.

And then, and that'll all be under the student's college board ID number, which, what they'll need to do when they start there. Uh, form. The other parents, um, will be asked, or we call it the non custodial parent. That parent will be asked to create their own College Board ID number, and they'll fill in their information separately.

So, say the parent who the student's filling out the form with is remarried, they'll share their household income, so [00:10:00] their and their spouses, but you, later on, will upload your W 2s and such. So what a college will do is separate the parent from the stepparent. So the stepparent won't be used in the calculations.

And so they will look at just the parent's income. They'll redo the taxes to make sure they're just looking at that parent's information. The non custodial parent, the same thing. They'll just look at their income itself. What's interesting about College Board is that Excuse me, the CSS profile is that, remember, each parent's going to have their own college board ID number.

That's important because they're very, um, uh, pay a lot of attention to keeping each parent's information separate. So this child connects the two, the student connects the two, but one parent cannot see the other parent's income and vice versa, um, or assets. Um, so they, um, that's why you have separate [00:11:00] custodial parent, non custodial parent.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's very, very helpful. All right. So one of the questions actually we have a couple of questions on this topic, because we know this is something that's different than the FAFSA is the CSS profile asked questions about the home that you live in your primary residence. So the questions are coming in of how do we determine.

Um the value of our home to put on the css profile.

Mike Goodwin: Sure. Yep So the easy answer is zillow. com If you're not sure what your home is worth Go to zillow and put your address in and it should give you if it's in the system Which most of our houses are it'll come up with your home value So now you have your home value then look at your mortgage statements and see what your balance is and what you owe on it And that's going to be what you, the debt, what you owe in your home.

So it, that's the easiest way to do that. We don't want parents to go out and have their houses [00:12:00] appraised and pay the money to do all that. Um, for most schools using the CSS profile, we'll use a formula. That will only that will if your equity which so what the house is valued at what you owe what is in between is the home equity if that equity is greater than the family's income then they'll use a formula to just base it on a percentage of your income.

As opposed to the whole the whole equity. So say you have 500, 000 in home equity, which is an asset, um, but your income is only 110, um, annually, then they'll use the percentage of your income in place of that home equity. Um, so, um, check with your colleges, ask them if you have questions about that, ask them how they treat home equity, um, if they're using the CSS profile.

Because we don't want to punish families who have been paying their mortgages for 10, 15, 20 years, [00:13:00] um, and then punish them for having such equity built up.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. Now we have a question from a grandfather, and, um, so I'll quickly read the question and then you can talk about it from the CSS perspective.

Um, he learned that because this grandfather is a guardian and not a parent, that, um, the college said that they should fill out, the CSS profile independently. Now I believe that's true on the FAFSA, but can you Talk about how you would like guardians to fill out the CSS profile, like in this case, these grandparents that the student lives with.

Um, and also, can you explain, do you think that different colleges treat that a little bit differently? Okay, thank

Mike Goodwin: you. Yeah, absolutely not. I was just thinking that. So yeah, so to answer the last question first. Check with your [00:14:00] college that your student is applying to and ask them, um, how best to fill the CSS profile if you are indeed a guardian.

of your student. Um, the profile is designed for the parents to fill out, but we know there are a lot of situations. In fact, I just had a conversation last week with a family who, the student lives with their aunt and uncle because mom is incarcerated and dad cannot be found. Um, so for our needs, the student would fill out the CSS profile as an independent student.

The colleges will make that determination if the student is independent. So there's some forms you'll fill out. One's called a noncustodial parent waiver form. Um, and so in our case at Williams, we would ask the student. to fill out that form. And in that form, there's this area where they can write a small narrative, um, explaining their situation, that my parent is incarcerated, that my father left when I was a young age, um, whatever that reason might be.

Um, [00:15:00] then the college will make that determination. What's helpful with that is that when they fill out the FAFSA, The federal government is going to want verification on that. And what's nice is that if they can do that through the profile and they have that information, then they can, the college will make that determination regarding their FAFSA, that the student is independent for, for these reasons.

for federal, um, uh, grant. Um, part of the, um, non custodial waiver form is that it may ask for one or two third party letters. So a guidance counselor, clergy, friend of the family, someone who can just verify that indeed the student does live with their guardians, grandparents, aunts and uncles, whoever that might be.

Any court documents you have for that as well would be great. This is different than being adopted. If the student is adopted by the grandparents, aunt and uncles, then they're seen as legal parents, [00:16:00] um, in that case, and they would be asked to contribute and so on. Even those cases, have a conversation with the college, um, the financial aid office to get clarity on what they are looking for for that.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. So here's another good question. We've been getting a lot lately. Um, I have a student in college now, sophomore and twin daughters who will attend college next year. So I'll have three in college for a few years. Um, will this be considered, uh, for my financial aid?

Mike Goodwin: Sure. Yep. So again, most, you know, a lot of these answers will be double check the college to make sure how they, they treat.

Um, situations like this, most of the CSS profile schools, um, you'll be working with or applying to, we'll look at that and they will give you, um, credit for having two in college or three in college. So what that means is they'll come up with your parent contribution and then they will have a set [00:17:00] reduction that they will add Addressing the fact that you have multiple students in college, um, and different schools do it differently.

Um, for the most part, you see, I would think if you have your contribution, it'll drop down to 60 percent if you have two in college. And then if you have three in college, you may drop to 50 or 45%. Every college will have their own, um, percentage that they use, but it's a good thing to ask. And I think because when you, what's nice about the profile is that they're looking at, again, whole profile of your family.

And so you want to make sure when you have multiple children that you're including them. And when you're filling out the form, sharing that they're in college. where they're going to college. Some colleges will ask your student to submit a sibling verification form. So basically they're going to ask for, so say the sibling goes to Williams, but excuse me, the student goes to Williams, but the sibling goes to, uh, Framingham State College.[00:18:00]

They may ask Framingham State College to, uh, their financial aid office to sign a form saying Yes, the sibling is enrolled. Yes, they're receiving aid. So now Williams can verify that there is a sibling in school. Um, so that's part of that process. But for the most part, schools using CSS Profile are going to recognizing having multiple in college.

On the FAFSA, just to kind of talk about that quickly, one of the big changes with the FAFSA is that they did not count having multiple siblings in college at the same time, having two or three more students in college at once. That is just because FAFSA is looking at giving the most siblings. federal grant aid to that individual student.

That doesn't mean that the colleges that are applying to won't still take that in consideration when they're giving out their aid and such. So I think a lot was made to do about FAFSA not recognizing two in college. Colleges will make those decisions, um, [00:19:00] because remember they want your student on their campus and so they'll find ways to help you in the situations like that.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. Now this question is about the special circumstances section of the application, which of course is great because there's nothing like that on the FAFSA. So can you speak to that? And particularly if someone has new health issues, medical bills, how should people utilize that section?

Mike Goodwin: Sure.

So as you're filling out the CSS profile, you're going to find there's a lot of questions that just the answers are numbers and you're just going doing numbers and it's going to feel like your whole life is just reduced to dollar amounts and numbers. What's nice about the special circumstances box is that it's a place where you can write, share your story, and there's a number of characters like only like so many words, but it's enough that you can put your story in there.

And that's where you share that. Um, my, I lost my job this past year. My husband is [00:20:00] expecting a pay decrease, um, in, in six months because his job's changing. We're taking care of an alien grandparent who now lives with us. I send money to my, um, uh, aging parents, you know, in another state. It's a way for you to share your story with the colleges and in an area where you want them to take these things into consideration.

Oftentimes it opens a door for appeals. So if you share ahead of time that, you know, you've had a job loss, because remember we're looking at prior, prior year, if you're applying the CSS profile for next year, 25, 26, you'll be using your 2023 tax return, but maybe you lost your job in 2024. So now here's a chance for you to share in the special circumstances area that you had this job loss, or there's an illness in a family, or we had.

You know, large medical bills because of a skiing accident or whatever it [00:21:00] might be in your your life story, you know, part of your profile that you can share this with with this colleges and they will take that consideration. Great.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Someone is asking, do you submit the CSS profile every year? And the second part of their question is, if a younger child is attending in a year or two, how do they know you have more than one in college?

Mike Goodwin: Oh, I

Julie Shields-Rutyna: see. Let's say, I guess in that case, if you're not submitting it every year, how would you know that there's another child in college if they were coming up?

Mike Goodwin: So, some colleges, I know, ask for the CSS profile up front that first year, and they're, you know, They're, um, assuming that your income is going to stay the same each, each year for the four years that your students at that college.

So it stays the same. If there are any major changes, my guess is you're still fitting out the FAFSA and that might raise some flags or something. If your [00:22:00] school does that, then again, Special Circumstances is the place to share that, you know, Suzy has a brother who will be starting her junior year. and that kind of gives them a heads up.

But you can always reach out to school and share with them. Most cases, your colleges are going to ask you to reapply each year, because we know things happen with some regularity. Either your income goes up because you've gotten a promotion, or it's changed because of job changes, or, or changes in your workplace.

Um, so they want to keep an up to date profile. Um, each year you might win the lottery. We're going to want to know that too. So, so more cases cases than not, um, the college is going to ask you to apply each year.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. And this now this, um, really goes to, um, Say, uh, divorced or separated parents situation where both parents [00:23:00] may be required to report.

But what if a student has not had contact or financial support from a parent for five years? Can you talk about the waiver form, the ability to waive that requirement?

Mike Goodwin: So CSS profile website. Your college may have an access, have one on their website. Some colleges have their own designed, um, non custodial waiver, parent waiver form.

So you might want to look for that, um, if this is the situation you're in. Often cases, you know, a student may not have ever met the other parent. Um, their, their custodial parent was never married, uh, could be a situation where there's violence in the household and it's not safe for the fam, for the students or their, their custodial parent to reach out to the other parent.

All kinds of reasons that happen in life. So non custodial waiver form allows you to ask for, have this fam, this parent waived because of these reasons. [00:24:00] The first page of the waiver form asks for that parent's name, address. email, phone number, any information you may have. Many cases you won't have any information.

If that, how is, if that's how it is, you just leave those blank and put NA. The second page asks, when's the last time you've had contact with this, with that parent? I've had some of these waivers who student has Christmas every year with that parent, or they have text messages every three months from that parent, but they haven't seen him in five years.

But the college wants to have that information. And then that third page is where you share that narrative, that story. Many colleges will put a timeline. If you've not had contact five years or more with this, um, this parent, then they may decide to waive. Um, it's situations where I've not seen this parent in five years.

But he calls every year at Christmas on my birthday for a short conversation. And that's where colleges will, [00:25:00] they'll have committees and they'll discuss, okay, do we still want to waive this parent or not? If a student has regular contact with the parent that they're considering waiving, but the parent has not given any, any financial support to the family, colleges are still going to want that parent's information.

Because remember, you can divorce a parent, but not your student. And so they're probably going to still be looking for that information. Um, it may be a case of that parent just doesn't make the income to be able to support the student. That's going to be reflective when they go through this information and see that, that the money's not there.

Um, the, the, there is again another philosophy that an unwillingness to pay Does it automatically waive a parent? Um, so again, these are conversations to have with your schools. Um, this is where these special circumstances boxes come in. Um, the, the, [00:26:00] my experience again at Williams and talking to colleagues at other colleges, we understand we've heard so many stories.

Um, we, we, we have a threshold that we know that, yep, it's not worth, we can't, we can't contact this parent. It's not worth trying to get this parent, parents in another country, like the thresholds that we'll use to know that, you know, it's, it's not worth our time and effort trying to get information about this parent.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: What if a non custodial parent lives in another country? Does he need to create a CSS profile? And what if that person doesn't support the child financially?

Mike Goodwin: Sure. Yep. Well, that's a great question. Um, and let's, let's break it into two parts if we can. So, what's, one of the things that's different of the CSS profile from FAFSA is FAFSA only gives out federal aid to domestic students.

And then some undocumented students and, and such. The CSS profile can be filled out by [00:27:00] international families. So if you have a family, a student who lives in the United States with their custodial parent in the United States, but the other parent lives in, in France, um, they can still fill the CSS profile.

Same thing, they'd write their own college board ID number. They'd fill out their information and send it along, um, and colleges are designed to have the ability to look at, and the profile does this for us, to look at international conversion rates and, and currency rates and such. Um, if that parent is a parent who is international, who's not contributing, who's not part of the, the, the student's life and such, again, you'll share that in your special circumstances, you'll share that in the non, the waiver form.

Um, and colleges will make a decision based on that. Um, how much they want to pursue it. Um, and, and, um, yeah. You know, there, uh, by [00:28:00] paraliving internationally, they still can fill out the CSS profile. It's still available to them. And again, These happen a lot, but my experience is that parents who are divorced or separated, domestic or international, both parents still contribute.

It still, it happens. Um, it all really is based on the relationship the student has with, um, that parent. I would, I would just caution all of you out there, if it's an, um, uh, a bad divorce and one parent can't talk to the other parent, You know, there's still ways to work through that. And we'll work with families on that.

But our goal is never to keep the student in the middle of all that either. So we'll work directly with parents. Um, because parents want to contribute, but we don't want to be involved with divorce decisions or court decisions. This is, we'll come up with the one parent, household A, what they should contribute.

We'll come up with household B, what they should contribute, add together. That's the parent [00:29:00] contribution. It's up to the parents to decide how that gets paid.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thank you. I'm going to group a number of questions together here that all I think you can address, which is that on the CSS profile, there are lots of places where it asks you to estimate.

So a couple of examples, different people gave are how do I. fill out the cost of the college in question for the sibling where I don't know where they'll be attending. That's one place a parent might need to estimate. Um, other places just estimating future income for the parent or the student. And one parent said, I don't know if my student will get a summer job next year.

So how would you address all those questions about how do you estimate? How do you feel good about completing this form and doing the best you can with estimates?

Mike Goodwin: Yeah, and I think that's just that you do the best you can. I think there's situations you'll have those answers and you'll be able to fill them out, others maybe not.

I think if you have twins who are applying to college and you don't know, [00:30:00] What the other twins, you know, aid's going to look like, financial aid will look like, or your costs will be. You do your best. That's where calculators, net price calculators can be very helpful that because you'll be looking at their costs, just like you're looking at the other students costs.

Um, the, um, what a student can will, will make the following year. My advice is just whatever they made this past year, use that same number again. Like we're not expecting students to, to be getting raises in summer jobs and maybe they get a better summer job. That's fine. We'll see that when they apply that corresponding year and we have that information.

What's nice about the profile is that it's, it gives us, um, again, I keep using this term, a profile of the family. So you're using your 2023 tax return, tax information. We call that prior, prior year. If 2025, we're looking at 2023 because those tax returns should [00:31:00] be completed. The form asks you to give us a sense.

Of your income for 2024. And so right now we're in october You should have a pretty good sense looking at your w 2s Where you're at and you would give an estimate on that as best you can and then it asks you for 2025 What they're really just kind of looking for is, you know, are you seeing any obstacles between now and then?

um to to Regarding your income Um, in most cases, it's just gonna be the same numbers each year, you know, and, and, but they're just, they're just trying to develop this profile of your family so they can, again, give the best aid that they can give, um, that's reflective of your need, your demonstrated need.

Um, I know I'm working with a mother right now, um, on this, and she gets very anxious about, and like, you know, don't worry, I tell her, don't worry about it, that we're not, colleges aren't using that to determine [00:32:00] your aid for fall of 2025. Again, they're just trying to get that full picture, um, of that. The other question, Julie, you may have this, but I know it's probably going to come up, because it usually does when we do this.

It asks a family, what do you expect to pay? I was just

Julie Shields-Rutyna: going to ask that

Mike Goodwin: because we have a

Julie Shields-Rutyna: million

Mike Goodwin: dollar question. And I'll tell you, I filled out the profile a dozen times. I work with families, filling them out. And I hate that question. They hate that question. I wish they would just get rid of that question.

But the profile is trying to look at is what are you hoping to pay for college? I know, you know, the a hundred people on the zoom tonight, I'll know. We all want to pay zero, right? We want to pay at least the amount that we can pay. Um, my advice is always be reasonable with that thing about what you can afford within your budget, what you think college cost of college should be, and that's the number you put in.

There is [00:33:00] this fear that if you put in more. Then what you'd be eligible for colleges will use it. I trust my colleagues to not do that. Like they're going to come up with that number that is right for you. If you under report it, then there'll be, you know, they'll look at it negatively. No, cause we all know people want to pay the least amount.

Um, again, and I can't harp on this enough. Every college has to have a net price calculator on their website. So if you go to their website, you just search for net price calculator, or just. You know, I use Framingham State, Framingham State College, uh, University net price calculator, it'll pop up for you, and then you can put your information into the calculator and it'll give you the estimated cost for you for that year.

Do that, pop that number in there. If you don't like that number, use a different number. Um, but if you're looking for a real answer for that, [00:34:00] the calculators are a great tool to use to, to kind of get a sense of what you'd expect your costs to be.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: This is a different type of question. Just a technical. If a question on the profile asks for a line that has a blank on your 10 40, should you leave it blank or put a zero?

Mike Goodwin: Always put zeros. Um, I think the, the, the profile is designed to be intuitive. Uh, that's why you answer so many questions in the front part of it and some seem repetitive, but it's just so the rest of the, the skip logic it's called can make the profile, the profile of the application easier.

FASFA is the same. Um, colleges don't like blank spaces. Always put a zero if the answer is zero, um, because then we know that you've seen that and you've, you've answered it. Um, if you, if you don't have a value there or a number there, then the question comes, did they mean to put something there? And then they're going to have to follow up with you through an email or such.

[00:35:00] So my advice is always put a zero, don't leave any blanks.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And this person asked three questions. Um, so we'll have to remember them. But, um, but they're all good ones. Um, If a student is applying to early action and regular decision, is it all right to send CSS profile in at the same time for all schools?

That's number one. So that's kind of an easy one. I think I'll, I'll let you answer that and then I'll ask the other two.

Mike Goodwin: Oh, I'm sorry. So yeah.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So, so I guess I'll even answer that, right. That yes, it is, it is fine for early action, regular decision. You send in a profile and they can all be on there together.

Right. So then the next question, which I think maybe. will allow you to talk a little bit about sending tax returns and those different processes at different colleges. Do I need to upload the tax forms individually to each college? That's the second question.

Mike Goodwin: Sure. So no, that's a great question. So [00:36:00] much like Common App, um, which goes to all the colleges the student is applying to, CSS profile will go to all the schools that you list.

When you submit the CSS profile, you're done. You, you use your college board ID as a signature. Boom, it's off and sent. The student has a college board, um, uh, CS profile dashboard that they should be looking at, and the dashboard will indicate to you. We've received your information. Now we need you to upload your tax documents to what's called ioc, IDOC.

Which is the internet and institutional document service. So what you're going to do is upload your 2023 tax return, all the schedules, and your W 2s. If you own a business, So if you have a partnership or a sole proprietor, then you're going to have schedule E. And then [00:37:00] with that, we'll see that in schedule E tells you if you have what's called the 1065, form 1065, which means you have a partnership.

Or an 1120S, which means you're a sole proprietor, or an 1120, which is a tax form used for, for probably your own businesses. Colleges are going to want you to upload that, those as well. What happens is that family will fill in, will upload the tax return, the Schedule E, not the business tax returns. And so what happens is that slows the process down because they're gonna have to email you now to get those.

Um, so when you're, when you're uploading this information, you own a business 1065, 1120S, 1120, and your K1s. Those of you who own businesses, you know what I'm talking about. If not, talk to your accountants. Uh, but the K 1s are kind of like the W 2s for those businesses, and it tells us how much money you've received for them.

But the IDOC is a, it's a great way to, to share your information with [00:38:00] us, and we can verify everything you've reported on the CSS profile. So if you make a mistake, we will correct it on our end, um, and mistakes are easy, um, without a doubt. I've had families put too many zeros in, um, for their income, and we were able to say, no, you didn't make 7 million, you made 70, 000.

Um, and that's why that's all important to, to, to use and to pay attention to what schools are looking for. Oftentimes, schools will have their own dashboard or checklist for your student who's applying there. And they should keep an eye on that as well. Cause that's where the school is going to say, we're looking for your form to your business form, 10 65 or a schedule C I doc won't remind you that you're missing something because you're just, you're, if you upload your tax return, you could upload a tax return from 1973.

It won't make a difference. It just knows you uploaded a tax return. [00:39:00] Colleges will tell you when things are missing, um, and, and, and try to get you to, to, to get these forms to them. Um, and they will always ask you to upload them to IDOC. Um, so, cause that, what happens is that college board takes the information, files it all in a way that we can understand it.

So we get it, it's all sorted out and we can do our process.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Now, so this question is, um, oh, the last question there is, is it okay to just answer the required questions? If something is not required, what would you say?

Mike Goodwin: I, you know, I don't know. Um, it's kind of like, you know, do I do extra credit with my homework? Um, I think sometimes these non required questions can help you.

Um, I know some colleges will add questions to the CSS profile. They'll ask what kind of car do you drive and such. [00:40:00] Again, it's like, you know, leaving a blank as opposed to putting a zero. If you, if you don't answer it, they may come back for clarification. My advice is always answer all the questions. Um, and, and if you have concerns about tax implications or, or how it's going to reflect, talk to your accountant or, or if you have a financial planner, talk to someone who might be able to clarify the question for you.

And, um, I will tell you that It's tempting to not answer questions or tempting not to answer them fully. Colleges have a way of finding these out. I will just tell you that we, we, we do so many of these. We know if something's missing or if we need clarification. So my advice is always just fill it out fully and, and, um, and don't leave anything to chance.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. Um, there's a question. Let me see if I could find this again. Um,[00:41:00]

so this kind of addresses a few other things too, and a little bit what you were talking about, Mike. This question is, the CSS profile asks for, Asks for parents highest level of education. It's not a required question. Can a parent's level of education negatively impact the amount of aid that's available?

And anyway, so I guess that goes to what you were just saying that that so people shouldn't try to speculate, right? Yes,

Mike Goodwin: no. Yeah, it's, you know, don't silly. I've, I've had people who, who don't, who don't answer that as well, that has no, it should have no impact on any aid eligibility that you have. Again, going back to the idea that colleges are trying to get that profile.

So what, what is this family? What is, what are they made up of? Um, it's just a demographic question that, that they [00:42:00] use, um, for reasons other than, and not. bad reasons or nefarious reasons just to kind of get that full picture of a family but should not impact your aid eligibility.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. Can you talk about how to value a small business?

Mike Goodwin: Yeah, no, that and that's my wife was a small business and we have that conversation all the time. I think, you know, again, if you work with an accountant on your business, that's probably the best place to go to get their take on that. When we're looking at a value of a business, What we're looking for is, do you own machinery, do you own property, do you, um, are there assets within the business that if you sold it, you'd get a value for.

So I'm working now with a, with a mom who has a, uh, coaching business, um, uh, counseling business, life counseling, coaching business. And she works out of her house and she's got a laptop. She doesn't really have any asset [00:43:00] within the business. So that would be a zero value, zero, um, zero debt on, on that business.

Um, if you have business savings. So say you, you, you're, you don't have a lot of assets, but you, you're throwing your business. You've been saving 50, 000 in your business account to use to grow. Then you have an asset, how you use that asset. When you sell the business, it's going to be up to you. Do you keep the 50, 000 or do you sell it with the business?

If you move it on to somebody else that they have that money to grow, that's where an accountant comes into play. Um, to get that advice from them, because I know people would look at it differently. If you have 50, 000 in a business account, the interest you're accruing is going to show up in your personal tax return.

So if you say you have 10 in your personal savings account, but you've got [00:44:00] 300 in interest earned off of savings accounts. Colleges may ask questions like, well, where's that money coming from? And it could be a business account. So these are the things just to keep in mind when you're answering the questions about, you know, what is my value?

What is it worth? And what do I have for an asset to share?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Alright, we have a couple more good ones and we still have about 10 minutes left. Can you talk about retirement income? Is it exempt? Or, but why are the questions asked?

Mike Goodwin: Yep. So again, broken record profile, looking at a profile. So, if you have money in a 401k, 403b, IRAs, whatever your retirement is, pension, it asks you to share.

Um, share the amount. The CSS profile light. I don't know if it, I don't think it asks that anymore, but for, for my purpose, I'll tell you personally why I like it is that there's a question about your investments, how much do you have in personal investments? [00:45:00] And oftentimes families will, parents will include their retirement in that, in that amount.

So I've had families who said they have. A million dollars in investments, but their income isn't really reflective of that. So i'll ask them do you have a million dollars in outside non qualified investments? Or is this retirement qualified investments and their eyes will open up and they're like, Oh my God, no, that's retirement.

We, colleges will not use your retirement investments as an asset. That's your money you've saved for retirement. So we're not going to count that or use that. But to me, it's always a helpful tool to kind of make sure we're differentiating between the two. So maybe out of that million dollars, 200, 000 was outside investments in 800's retirement.

So now we can split that out and be fair to the families. So we will not use retirement assets, um, in the calculations. However, [00:46:00] on your W 2, box 12 of your W 2, there are coded, um, amounts that tell us how much you're putting in unearned income towards your retirement. So maybe you make 130, 000. But you're making about 20, 000 of that income is, um, untaxed earnings that are going towards your retirement.

So your W 2 box 1 is going to say you made 110, 000 and that box 12 coded number is going to say 20, 000 that goes towards retirement. We are going to count that as income. So where your untaxed earnings going towards retirement will still be counted as income. Once it's in retirement. Then it's an asset that we're not going to touch and that can be confusing, especially when you're doing the calculator.

Because calculators will ask about untaxed benefits, and they're looking for that box 12, and there should be a [00:47:00] little The CSS profile as you fill it out has little question marks that you'll click on. It'll explain what they're looking for. So there will be a question about untaxed earnings or untaxed benefits.

Click that little question mark. It'll tell you W 2, box 12, letters D E F G H S. Um, those are the codes they're looking for, um, to include. And again, when you upload everything to the IDOC system, we look at that and we'll correct that if we need to. That's a long answer to a simple question. I apologize, but that's One that catches families quite often.

Uh, if it's a retirement asset, we're not going to count it. Um, but we still want to know just so we can get a full picture of, of, um, your family's profile.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thank you. I am a joint owner on my student's grandparents bank accounts. I'm the power of attorney. Do I report CSS [00:48:00] profile and then explain in special circumstances?

Mike Goodwin: The parent is a joint owner of the parent's grandparents account. If it's the grandparent's account, I, I would not think you have to count that because it's not your account. You're just the overseer of that. So I wouldn't count that. Um, and I probably wouldn't even ask that question. I think just, um, I would not include that.

Um, I don't know, Joe, if you, excuse me, if you have any questions about 529 college savings plans, but just to touch upon that, that is an investment. So when you report your investments, You want to include those 529 college savings plans again. However, if the grandparents own that 529 plan that they're saving for Susie to go to college, that plan belongs to the grandparents.

So you would not count that as your [00:49:00] investment or the student's investments. Different colleges look at that differently, but this is my understanding of the policy. Um, so the, so just because we're talking about grandparents and overseeing, if you're overseeing a 529 plan for Susie, then that becomes a little bit more ickier because you are connected to that 529 for the student and, and, and such.

Um, but again, accountants, um, people who have an understanding of, of how this all would work. Is a good resource to use.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. And this is kind of a unique question, but we we get things like this fairly often. This person owns an international property, but legally, the relatives back home have the right to use it.

They pay the taxes. They live there. Is this something that needs to be reported?

Mike Goodwin: If you own the property, it needs to be reported. So you report your house, your value of the home, where you live, if you, if you own a home, the, the debt on the home, [00:50:00] and then there's other real estate. So this would be other real estate.

Um, call doesn't want to know, okay, you have family members who are living there. Are they paying you rent? Are they like, And again, this is the special circumstances. It's important to kind of, um, hash that out. But I would report it because it'll come out one way or the other. Um, and and then work with the colleges and see how they would treat that.

That's what often often times we get appeals like that,

Julie Shields-Rutyna: and Mike, just hearing you answer that and some of the other things you've said so far, I feel like you tell me if this is correct as kind of a general answer to a lot of things. If there's a question about it, and you report it, and you can always explain it in the special circumstances.

That's sometimes a nice way to address things that you don't know whether to report or not, right, is to

Mike Goodwin: be

Julie Shields-Rutyna: able to [00:51:00] use that, that box to tell your story. Would you say?

Mike Goodwin: Yep. And I'll step out if I can take off my. professional hat and put on my parent hat. My wife and I put two daughters to and through college and and those parents starting out there's light at the end of the tunnel.

It's wonderful. You'll appreciate it. Um, being able to build a relationship with your financial aid office is important. So this is a situation where you may not know the correct answer to it and you're almost afraid to ask the question, but if you can build a relationship with the office and, and have a conversation with them, they're going to remember you.

sophomore year, junior year, senior year. But then when other things come up that really do need to be addressed. Um, so I think, you know, take advantage of that. I can't promise all colleges are going to be as Wonderful as we are, um, but my I know a lot of colleagues. I have a lot of colleagues in the field and we talk about this a lot to have in a relationship with their office.

[00:52:00] Um, uh, it's important really quick, quick story. My daughter went to Wheaton and, um, we were going through, I was changing jobs. My wife was starting a business years later. I met the director of financial aid for Wheaton. She was retiring and said, my daughter had gone there. She saw my last name. She goes, Oh, your daughter's Eleanor.

I'm like, No, my wife's Eleanor. My daughter's Kelsey. Her relationship was with my wife because my wife was the one who asked the questions and built the relationship and did everything. And the fact that she remembered her probably says a lot about us as a family but more importantly about her as a professional.

And that's what we do. We want to build these relationships with families. Because we know it's a lot we're asking of you, a lot of private information, and we know college costs a lot, so we really want to help you as best we can with those costs, and understanding these costs, and what we're asking for.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So this, I'm going to ask this one because I think we only have time for a few more, but this is a little bit different in that it's about [00:53:00] addresses, and you know, so this is kind of a technical piece. So, this family asks, is it okay if the student's CSS profile versus the common app? If the parents are divorced and have joint custody, where one address is there a place where one address may be more beneficial in terms of chances of admission?

I mean, that's, it's kind of a loaded big question, but I guess we do see that right with parents. putting different addresses and

Mike Goodwin: but ideally having one address for everything makes the most sense for a couple and it helps colleges. I suspect that the college the address that the student uses on the common app is going to be the address that will go into the student's college record if she's accepted.

Um, if there's any need for You know, the college record, college address of record, which is in her formal account for the college, is going to be tied into financial [00:54:00] aid. You know, I would say have, I would try to, and I'm saying there are situations that may call for this, but try to be as consistent as, as you can.

And at least when the student is admitted to the college, have the student correct, um, the address with, with the offices. Which would be the main college office and her account record, the registrar's office, um, and the financial aid office. Um, so we're sending the bills, the bills are electronic now, but you know, we just want to make sure we have the right information.

Um, but I do have families who are moving, who are in flux, who, and that happens. Um, but I think having at least the, the colleges. Um, on record the address on record is going to be the most important and then clarifying with their financial aid office when you because again you peel you apply every year you can always correct that.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: All right, I'm going to ask one more specific question here and then a more general one and I think that might be all be able to take. [00:55:00] What if we're divorced and we still own the house together, although one parent and the kids live in the house, and the mortgages in the other parents name and they're both paying for it.

How would, how would you. be reported.

Mike Goodwin: Sure. So, you of take a step behind tha divorce, which sounds lik remember looking at 2023

On that tax return but now in 2025 Your divorce are separated Um, what we'll do is we'll take that tax return Divvy up the w 2s if there's a w 2 for each of them And just split everything down the middle. We'll prorate the taxes to separate extricate both parents so you both have your own profile, right?

Um, both parents, if they're separated, both parents will still need to do a CSS [00:56:00] profile. If both parents are divorced or separated but still living in the same household, Most colleges are going to treat you as married and put together as one household because you're sharing expenses, um, and all the other allowances that we'd give you, uh, within that household.

If you're divorced and one parent's still in the house, you still own the house, you're going to share that special circumstances. We'll, we'll split the, the value of the home in half, the debt in half, unless we have other information to share differently, um, and just separate that out. But by doing that, the parent who no longer lives in the house and may is renting someplace is getting all these protection allowances for having his own household, having their own household, I should say.

Um, because that's just being fair to both parents. Um, so yeah, so we'll, we'll address that long as you point it out to us.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And the last question I'm going to ask [00:57:00] is someone said they didn't realize they could call the college. They could call the colleges to ask some of these questions and they're asking how do you do that?

What's the best way to reach out to a college and when and how and all of that?

Mike Goodwin: Sure, yeah. I think, you know, one thing we talk to families about is if it's, FAFSA, if it's a FAFSA question, if it's, you know, it's not working for me or I'm trying to, I'm trying to go forward and it's not working. If it's a technical issue, deal with it.

College Board, deal with, deal with, uh, um, StudentAid. gov. Um, deal with the entities themselves. If it's a question about treatment, like, how would a school treatment this, or how should I report this information, um, and you've, you've used the little question icons that tell you what we're looking for, and you still struggle with that, then an email to the Financial Aid Office is, is a great way to introduce yourself.

And just say, you know, I'm struggling with [00:58:00] this question. Um, how best should I do that? And then, you know, the schools will, will answer it. Um, 90 percent of us are all consistent how we do, how we treat things, but we also have our own little, little intersync is how we do things. So I think, you know, reach out to the school and figuring that out.

Um, the, I think, you know, What I would caution any family on is, you know, emailing every day or trying to call every day or multiple times a day, um, to, to fill these out. Um, the idea is that you should be able to do these on your, they're designed, their family can do these on their own. And I know that's an unfair statement because we're joking today about both the profile and the, and the FAFSA are really designed for a family of four married.

Two parents, two kids and everything else. It seems to be like a work around. So we're all going to have situations that, um, are unique to us. [00:59:00] And that's, and that's great. That's wonderful. Um, the, the, what you need to do is when you just can't come up with an answer, reach out to the office and they'll be willing to help.

Um, cause that's really what we are there for. Um, and we want to make sure any customer service is a big part of our job. And if we don't have an answer, we'll do our best to find that answer for you.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. So it is 7 33. And there are some questions that we haven't been able to answer, but I will take those back and we will work on getting some answers and send that out to respond.

Um, I don't know, Mike, you gave a lot of sort of general wisdom in between and within some of your answers. Any last words about, you know, You know, to the parents who are in students who are sitting down and doing this form now, you know.

Mike Goodwin: Yep. So a couple things. One, that I would [01:00:00] be in trouble if I didn't share that, um, along with my job and what I do at Williams, I also co chair an organization called FAFSA Day.

So I co chair with, with a colleague of Julie's at MIFA. Um, we've been doing this for years and we work with, um, volunteers from different colleges. And we have a different number of, um, FASFA day nights where people can join in and someone will help you fill out the FASFA and really is FASFA focused.

But we also have a FASFA day at gmail. com that I manage. So if you have questions about the CSS profile, by all means, reach out there and we can help with that. Uh, FASFA day really is FASFA focused cause a lot of our volunteers don't work with the CSS profile. But FASFA day, uh, gmail. com is a place that I go with those questions.

In terms of advice, sit back, take a deep breath, answer each question one at a time. Do not rush [01:01:00] through it. Do not fret about it. Remember that you are one of thousands and thousands and thousands and even more thousands of families. We're filling this out. If you make a mistake, you're going to be one of thousands and thousands or more thousands of people who made a mistake.

That's fine. We know that. And that's why their systems are put in place, like uploading your, your tax returns to us and such. Uh, we'll find ways to verify and we'll reach out if we have questions, but just don't, don't overthink, just answer the questions and do your best. That's all we ask of families.

Don't be afraid of it. Colleges want to help. We're not here to try to get money out of you. We're trying to give money to you. Some schools are more, um, restricted what they can give than others, but it does mean that we're not going to find ways to help as best we can. So just have faith, have faith in the system.

Um, take a deep breath, maybe a glass of wine, um, and go question by question and fill it out. [01:02:00]

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That's great. Thank you. So thank you, Mike. And thank you all for the great questions. And I'm sure your questions were, you know, Yeah, I gave a lot of learnings to a lot of people will answer the rest will send.

We'll send those out when we do some follow up and, um, continue to be in touch with with either of us and and connect with us. If you have have further questions in the whole process. So thank you very much. Everyone have a good night.

Mike Goodwin: Thank you. Good luck. Bye bye.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thanks.