CSS or the FCS-- The Financial Cavity Search

Claire-Adele is a senior and is applying to college for next year. We were at a picnic last week and every single adult she spoke to asked her about her plans for next year. What is often considered polite conversation starter: "Where are you applying?" is considered by Claire-Adele to be a crazily invasive question. Afterward, she said she wanted to wear a sign that reads "Please don't ask me about college."

I can appreciate her stress. She is applying to some serious reach schools where it comes down to luck as to whether or not she'll get in.

In support of Claire-Adele chasing her dream schools, Jack and I (mostly I) worked on the FAFSA and the CSS forms this weekend. FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That form asks for some basic tax info from the previous year and how much money you have in cash and investments. They don't care about retirement or the value of your home. It didn't take that long to fill nor was it complicated as long as you have a copy of your previous year's tax return in hand. Enter your AGI, the amount of taxes paid, the balance in your bank accounts and your kid's accounts, and you are basically done.

Jack and I know the kids aren't going to be eligible for much (or any) financial aid until the Boy starts school, and even then it might be dicey, especially now that I have a job. We filled out the form anyway as a baseline in case something happens to our cashflow and we can no longer afford tuition. Jack could lose his job or become disabled. Both of us could encounter elder care expenses for our parents. Seattle could get hit by an earthquake or Jack could run off with another doctor at the hospital and we could end up divorced. None of these are likely to happen in the near future, but the probability isn't zero, so I buckled down and filled out the forms.

Fine.

The FAFSA was one thing, then there is the CSS, sponsored by the College Board, the same organization that charges $60 (or whatever) for every high school student to take the SAT and $100 (or whatever) to take an AP exam. The CSS is the College Scholarship Service, but it should be called the FCS, the Financial Cavity Search. Most private colleges want both the FAFSA and the FCS. Here is a summary of the FCS:

• How much money did you earn last year and this year? How much do you expect to earn next year? 
• When did you buy your home? How much did you pay for it? How much you owe on your mortgage? What is your monthly payment and how much is your home worth now? (Damn you, Zillow!!!)
• How much money did you put in retirement funds last year? 
• How much did you spend on healthcare?
• Are you being supported by other people? 
• Are you supporting other people?
• Do you own a vacation home? Family business? Farm?
• How much money did your kid make last summer? Next summer? 
• Do you have a trust fund?
• Life insurance?
• How many cars do you own? What are the makes, models, year and how much did they cost?
• How much money are you hiding in your mattress? 
• Have you looked in the cushions of your couch? 
• How much money is in your coin bucket?
• What is your non-taxable income? (This one is for the likes of the Corleone and Gambino families. Michael Corleone went to Dartmouth, after all, but I doubt he applied for financial aid.)
• Are your parents rich?
• Are your parents old and decrepit and you need to take care of them? How much are you paying for that nursing home?
• Do you have a rich, childless sibling who is going to pay for your kid to go to college?
• Is there any money anywhere else that you are not telling about, because if there is and you are not telling us, you are in big, big trouble, Mister!

Oh. My. God. It was awful. I only made up three of those questions on that list. The rest of them are true, and I left some of the other ones out because I blocked them out from the pain of answering them. The only question they didn't ask was how much jewelry I owned and how much was it worth. I bet next year it gets added to the list, or else they know not to get between a woman and her bling. They also didn't ask about the cash back program for my credit cards. Oh shit--would that be non-taxable income? Too bad. They didn't list it as on option on the form.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day, one of the last before the hellish Seattle rainy winter brings nine months of gray and gloom, and I spent it exposing every financial detail about my life to the internet. People aren't supposed to talk about money but here I am having to financially strip down and be evaluated by complete strangers.

I would have said FTS to the FCS and not filled it out. I might have gone rogue and said "Ha! I am not playing your games and and and...wait, how much does this dream school of my daughter's cost? Really?" and then I buckled. They might decide to give us some money some day, I thought. We should fill it out on the off chance something bad happens.

I entered the list of all of the colleges she is going to apply to that require the FCS and hit submit, when I got a delightful* surprise: It was going to cost $110 to send all of my private financial information to all of these schools. It is bad enough my daughter wants to leave me and move to the East Coast. And now I have to pay for the privilege of having my family's financial situation scrutinized?

Kill me now, I thought. Kill me now.

* By delightful, I mean hellish.