My parents simply told me they had too much in savings for me to get financial aid so filling out the FAFSA was a waste of time. But the entire time I was growing up they acted like we weren't in the best financial shape and couldn't afford name brand cereal and stuff so I learned to be thrifty through a false sense of being worse off than we actually were.

It is important to teach kids to live with in reasonable means and how to prioritize needs over desires to stay within budget when everything is accounted for. It is not important in my opinion for them to know an exact amount anyone makes, but the article does outline a way the former was achieved by doing the latter.

My parents did something similar.

FAFSA is supposed to provide some degree of assistance for nearly everyone in the middle class, and overwhelming amounts for working class families.

We left money on the table at a time when money was short because my parents didn't want to break out the tax forms, and assumed assistance was for Other People.

FAFSA was required to get merit-based scholarships from my college, so I filled it out even though my parents made too much to get any need-based aid. I did get some money that way even.

I don't know that the threshold for FAFSA being useless is really that high.

For Pell Grants isn't not that high, but you still have to fill one out if you want federal student loans which have no limit at all.

Opposite of others' stories, my mother always put a very low number on the FAFSA form. It always annoyed me because I thought she was lying just so I can get more financial aid, and I'd argue about it because it felt like fraud.

Some years later, as I got good at personal finance and started helping family with budgeting, debt reductin, taxes, etc -- I saw all her financial info and realized she wasn't lying. She really did have very little. I was lucky to have been able to attend college.

(Everything's fine now, but I still carry some of that guilt for not believing her.)

Yes, and that is mentioned in the article:

> Keep in mind that if you are planning on applying for financial aid for college, you will have no choice but to disclose your financial information when your child is a senior in high school. That’s because anyone who wants financial aid must fill out a form called the Fafsa. It asks for information about income and assets. Parents sign it, and so must the students; everyone attests to the accuracy of the information.

>It's inescapable if they go to college.

I can confirm for you that it is not inescapable. And, yes that does make paying for college quite a bit more difficult for the student.

Indeed, it's a particularly powerful tool if your parents don't want you to graduate from college. My sister was the only one to escape this trap due to attending a very inexpensive state school (they even rent the textbooks) just to get a generic business degree, being able to live with our grandmother, and having acquired skills that earned her above average wages.