CSS Profile.
In plain English
The CSS Profile is a financial aid application run by the College Board that certain, mostly private, colleges use to hand out their own institutional grants and scholarships. It goes deeper than the FAFSA, asking about home equity, small-business value, and more, and unlike the FAFSA it usually charges a fee to submit, with fee waivers for lower-income students. Schools that require it want a fuller financial picture before awarding their own money. It does not replace the FAFSA, which is still needed for federal aid; it is an additional form at the colleges that ask for it.
01Why it matters
Missing the CSS Profile at a school that requires it can cost a student that college's own grant money, so knowing whether a target school uses it, and its separate deadline, protects real aid.
02The math, step by step
A student applies to a private college that requires both the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. The FAFSA sets federal aid; the CSS Profile lets the college decide its own grant. Skip the Profile and the federal aid still comes, but the school's institutional grant may not.
03What this is NOT
It is not the FAFSA. The FAFSA is the free federal form for federal aid. The CSS Profile is a separate, often paid form some colleges use for their own institutional aid. Many students who need it must file both.
04Receipts
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