CSS Profile vs FAFSA: What Each Form Is, What It Costs, and Which You Need
A parent opens a spreadsheet of five colleges. Three list "FAFSA only." Two list "FAFSA and CSS Profile," and the parent wonders whether the second form replaces the first.
It does not. The FAFSA is the free federal form. The CSS Profile is a separate College Board application that participating colleges and scholarship programs use to award their own non-federal aid. File the FAFSA for every college on the list, and add the CSS Profile only for the schools that ask for it.
What is the difference between the CSS Profile and the FAFSA?
The FAFSA covers federal and state aid. The CSS Profile feeds the formula a college uses for its own money. Everything below is for the 2027-28 aid year, as of October 1, 2026.
| Feature | FAFSA | CSS Profile |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | U.S. Department of Education | College Board |
| What it leads to | Federal and state grants, work-study and loans | Non-federal institutional aid from colleges and scholarship programs |
| Who files | Anyone applying for federal aid | Only students applying to participating colleges and programs that ask |
| Cost | Free | $25 for one institution, $16 for each additional; fee waivers below |
| The home a parent lives in | Left out of the parent's assets | Each college decides; several count home equity |
| Retirement accounts and a small family business | Left out (a family business with 100 or fewer full-time employees) | Each college decides |
| Divorced or separated parents | One parent: the one who provides the greater financial support | Custodial parent; some colleges also require the noncustodial parent to file separately |
| Opens | Available since September 23, 2026 for 2027-28 | October 1 each year |
| Deadline | Federal: June 30, 2028; state and college dates are usually earlier | Each college's own priority date |
| Where to start | StudentAid.gov or fafsa.gov | cssprofile.collegeboard.org |
They do different jobs, and neither replaces the other.
Which colleges use the CSS Profile, and who has to fill it out?
Only the participating colleges and scholarship programs on College Board's list, which is published for each aid year. The 2027-28 list has 261 entries by our count: colleges, graduate and professional programs, and scholarship programs. Each entry shows Yes or No for four groups: domestic students, international students, noncustodial parents, and IDOC.
Three examples show how the columns work. Harvard College, Stanford University and Northwestern University show Yes for domestic students and for noncustodial parents. Vanderbilt University and Centre College show Yes for domestic students and No for noncustodial parents.
Being on the list is not the same as requiring every applicant to file. The list says these institutions use the CSS Profile or IDOC for "some or all" of their financial aid applicants.
What does each form ask, and how do they treat your home?
On the 2027-28 FAFSA form, the parent asset questions leave out the home the parent lives in and retirement accounts, and they exclude a family business with 100 or fewer full-time employees. The CSS Profile is broader. BigFuture tells families to expect questions about income, assets and expenses, and then each college applies its own formula.
Several colleges say outright that home equity counts. Georgetown's aid office lists home equity and business assets among the information its CSS Profile collects. Vassar assesses certain income and assets the FAFSA does not, home equity among them. Barnard's formula counts all sources of income and all assets, home equity included, and Grinnell says it has always requested home equity, business value and assets. I studied finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and was a credit analyst at CIBC when I co-founded Rapunzl, and I still would not guess how a given college counts a home; its aid office decides.
What does each form cost, and who gets a fee waiver?
The FAFSA is free. The Department of Education's Financial Aid Toolkit says the first F in FAFSA stands for free. The CSS Profile costs $25 for one institution and $16 for each additional one, according to College Board as of October 1, 2026.
It is free for undergraduates living in the U.S. if family adjusted gross income is up to $100,000, if the student qualified for an SAT fee waiver, or if the student is an orphan or ward of the court under 24. A waiver covers all application and reporting fees. College Board's fee waivers page says "up to $100,000," while its FAQ says "under $100,000," so a family right at the line should read both or ask College Board.
That $100,000 figure is a fee-waiver line, not an eligibility line for aid. Whether a family receives aid is up to each college.
Aid forms are one source of college money among several. Scholarship competitions that sit outside both forms are another, including Rapunzl's free national scholarship competition, which runs each year from January to late April.
When is the CSS Profile deadline, and when is the FAFSA due?
The 2027-28 FAFSA covers July 1, 2027 to June 30, 2028. The Department of Education put the 2027-28 form online on September 23, 2026 (ED announcement), and the form says to submit as early as possible. The federal deadline is June 30, 2028. State and college deadlines usually come first: the Department of Education's explanation of the three FAFSA deadlines says a college typically has the earliest of all.
The CSS Profile opens October 1 each year. College Board says to submit "by midnight Eastern Time of your earliest priority filing date," and BigFuture suggests starting at least two weeks before that date. Each college's aid page lists the date that matters for your student.
What if parents are divorced or separated?
The two forms ask for different parents. The FAFSA form asks about the parent who provides the greater portion of the student's financial support, even if the student does not live with that parent. On the CSS Profile, College Board says some colleges require both the custodial and noncustodial parent to complete separate applications.
Vassar's aid office describes the contrast as one household on the FAFSA and both households on the CSS Profile. That simplifies the FAFSA rule above, but it shows why the numbers can differ. Account setup and waiver requests for a noncustodial parent are a separate topic.
How do you decide which forms to file?
Run this list against your student's actual colleges.
- List every college your student is applying to.
- Check each college's financial aid page and the College Board's 2027-28 list for the CSS Profile.
- File the FAFSA for all of them.
- File the CSS Profile only for the colleges that ask.
- Put each school's earliest priority date on one calendar and work backward from it.
For step 3, Rapunzl's FAFSA Helper walks a senior through the federal form in small steps: eligibility, an estimate of a Pell Grant and aid range, and drafts of answers, before sending the student to StudentAid.gov to submit. It never files or signs anything, it works in English and Spanish, and it covers the FAFSA only, not the CSS Profile.
83% of the schools Rapunzl works with are in low- and moderate-income communities, and its Paying for College module, for grades 9-12, covers scholarships, grants, student loans and work-study programs, plus the FAFSA. The student's side of the FAFSA walkthrough takes the federal form step by step.
For the CSS Profile, keep nearby the most recent tax returns, W-2 forms and other records of current-year income, records of untaxed income and benefits, assets, and bank statements. Some colleges also ask families to upload documents through College Board's IDOC service, and College Board emails you if yours does.
Frequently Asked
Questions
It is a different tool, not a better one. The FAFSA is the form for federal aid, and the CSS Profile only matters for colleges and scholarship programs that use it for their own aid.
Start with the FAFSA. It is free, it is federal, and it goes to every college on your list. Then file the CSS Profile in time for the earliest priority date of the schools that ask.
It can take longer. BigFuture says to expect questions about income, assets and expenses, and College Board's getting started page says to have tax returns, W-2 forms and bank statements ready. That is a longer document list, which is not the same as a harder form.
College Board lists a fee-waiver line of $100,000 in family adjusted gross income ("up to" on the fee-waivers page, "under" in its FAQ). That is not an eligibility line for aid, and each college decides who receives aid and how much.
If a college on your list uses it, the CSS Profile is how that college decides its own aid, so yes for those schools. If no college or scholarship program on your list participates, you do not need it.
The FAFSA is filed once per aid year, according to the Department of Education. College Board's home page has a separate CSS Profile sign-in for each aid year, and each college sets its own rules on when it wants one, so confirm with its aid office.
Ask your student's school whether paying for college gets taught before senior year. If it does not, request a Rapunzl demo for your student's school.
By Myles Gage, Co-Founder and CMO at Rapunzl.