Dartmouth, and many dozens of other colleges that require financial aid applicants to submit forms other than the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, may violate federal law if they use those forms to determine federal aid eligibility, according to a letter to the Secretary of Education from Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The Higher Education Act prohibits higher education institutions from requiring applicants to submit fee-based financial aid forms, such as the College Board-developed CSS profile, to determine eligibility for federal financial aid. The law, however, does not address which forms colleges may require to determine eligibility for non-federal aid.
The letter, based on an investigation by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight, named 111 schools that might give students the inaccurate impression that they must complete the CSS/Financial Aid profile, a College Board-created form that requires a submission fee to receive any financial aid.
Along with Dartmouth, the letter identified Amherst College, Duke University and Swarthmore College, as well as every Ivy League institution except for Princeton University.
After Cummings’s allegation, Dartmouth’s financial aid office added an explanation on its website that only the FAFSA is required to apply for federal financial aid, financial aid director Virginia Hazen said.
The College does not require students to submit the CSS Profile. If a student refuses, the Financial Aid Office notifies the student that his or her financial information will be reviewed only for FAFSA eligibility but not institutional funding, Hazen said.
The financial aid office uses the FAFSA to determine eligibility for federal funding and the profile for need-based institutional aid.
Of the 14 students interviewed by The Dartmouth, most said they understood that the FAFSA had to do with federal aid and that the profile is primarily used by private institutions for institutional funding.
Several said that although they could not learn about the different functions of each document from the Financial Aid Office’s website, they thought the College gave clear guidance for the application process.
Benjamin Bonner ’18 said he had a “rudimentary” understanding of the financial aid process, and Lauren Maiorano ’17 said her mom communicated with the financial aid office throughout the application process to ask about each of the requirements.
Felipe Acevedo ‘16 said he attended a number of college financial aid information sessions to learn about the process.
Hazen estimated that 90 percent of aid, excluding loans, comes from the College’s private funding. The profile serves students’ best interests by providing the financial aid office with more detailed information, she said.
About 9 percent of scholarships granted to Dartmouth students during the 2012-13 academic year came from federal or state sources, according to the Dartmouth College Fact Book. That year, students received $83,602,258 in need-based scholarships and $8,758,946 in loans, almost half of which were federally-funded.
Hazen said she believes some of the FAFSA’s questions are misleading, allowing households to omit information about taxed incomes. The FAFSA also does not ask households to report on their untaxed incomes and businesses, she said.
“The FAFSA has been simplified over the years to the point where it no longer collects sufficient information to allow us to make an accurate decision of need,” she said.
Cummings said in an email that he wants to ensure institutions do not block students from receiving critical federal aid.
The letter alleged that 58 institutions explicitly state that students must submit the profile to receive any type of financial aid, while 53 institutions — including Dartmouth — require the profile without explaining its use. The letter also said that the profile contains more detailed and complicated questions than the FAFSA and that its fee waiver process is not transparent.
The College Board does not decide whether to waive its application fee until after it reviews an applicant’s profile, when it can determine the student’s fiscal capability. As a result, students must submit the profile before they learn if its fee will be waived.
Students must pay $25 to submit the profile to one institution and $16 for each additional institution.
Douglas Freehafer, the father of a member of the Class of 2018, said he had learned about the usage of each form though the course of submitting financial aid applications.
Financial aid administrators visit high schools to assist students in completing the profile, and students can also seek guidance from College Scholarship Service and call centers, Hazen said.
