The CSS Profile is the financial aid form a few hundred colleges use to award their own grants. Here’s how to fill out the 2027-28 version screen by screen, with video, fees, deadlines, and the mistakes that can shrink your aid.
Inside This Article:
- How the CSS Profile works
- Do you need to file the CSS Profile?
- How to fill out the CSS Profile, step by step with video
- How much does the CSS Profile cost?
- When is the CSS Profile due?
- Common CSS Profile mistakes to avoid
- Get CSS Profile help
Quick Summary:
The CSS Profile is the aid form that a few hundred colleges use to award their own grants, and each college decides what your family can pay. This guide walks you through the 2027-28 form screen by screen, from gathering documents to the uploads colleges request afterward, with video tips from planning specialist Luanne Lee. File it for every college that requires it, even if you don’t expect aid. Each college sets its own deadline, and the fee is $25 for the first college and $16 for each additional one; families with adjusted gross income up to $100,000 are exempt.
How the CSS Profile Works
You fill out one CSS Profile online, and the College Board sends it to each college you pick. Each college runs your answers through its own formula to decide what your family can pay and how much of its own grant money to offer.
About 250 to 300 colleges and scholarship programs use the CSS Profile, most of them private. It doesn’t replace the FAFSA, the free federal aid application, which you still need for federal grants, work-study, and loans. Colleges that require the CSS Profile expect both. For a side-by-side look at the two forms, read CSS Profile vs. FAFSA: What’s the Difference?
The College Board gives colleges a starting formula, called the Institutional Methodology, and each college decides how to apply it. Colleges can also add their own questions, so your form may not match a neighbor’s. The FAFSA gives you a Student Aid Index (SAI), but the CSS Profile never shows you a number. Each college reaches its own result.
The CSS Profile also gives colleges more than a single year to work with. It asks for 2025 income, an estimate for 2026, and any significant change you expect in 2027. That shows colleges where your finances are headed, not just where they’ve been.
Certified College Planning Specialist Luanne Lee of Your College Planning Coach partners with Road2College and has helped families with these forms for more than 20 years. She says the extra detail can work in your favor.
“The CSS is not the enemy that I portrayed it to be when I first started doing this 20 years ago,” she says. “It’s really giving them a complete snapshot.”
Because each college sets its own policies, two colleges that use the CSS Profile can make the same family very different offers. The biggest differences:
- Home equity. You report your home’s value and what you owe. Each college decides how much of that equity to count.
- Retirement savings. The CSS Profile asks for your balances, but Lee says colleges don’t count them toward what you can pay. They use the figures to gauge how prepared you are for retirement.
- Family businesses and farms. The FAFSA no longer counts most small family-owned businesses or a farm the family lives on, but the CSS Profile asks about both. A business that doesn’t affect your federal aid can still affect your aid at colleges that use the CSS Profile.
- Siblings in college. The FAFSA no longer gives families a break for having more than one child in college at a time. Lee says colleges that use the CSS Profile do account for two students in college at once.
- Medical bills. Colleges make allowances for unreimbursed medical and dental costs above a share of income that each college sets for itself.
- Divorced or separated parents. Many colleges that use the CSS Profile also require one from the noncustodial parent, which the FAFSA never asks for.
H3: 2027-28 CSS Profile at a Glance
Detail 2027-28 CSS Profile
Opened Oct. 1, 2026
Tax Year 2025
Adjusted gross income Line 11a of the 2025 Form 1040 (line 11 on earlier returns)
Cost $25 for the first college, $16 for each additional college
Noncustodial parent CSS Profile $25 total, however many colleges require it; free if that parent’s family adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less
Free if Family adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less, the student received an SAT fee waiver, or the student is an orphan or ward of the court under 24 (U.S. residents only)
Deadline Set by each college; submit by midnight Eastern time on your earliest priority date
Corrections One per academic year, through your CSS Profile dashboard
Documents Some colleges collect tax returns and other records through IDOC after you submit
Do You Need to File the CSS Profile?
File the CSS Profile only if a college or scholarship program on your list requires it and you want to be considered for its own aid. Check the College Board’s participating institutions list, then confirm on each college’s financial aid page, since requirements differ for domestic and international students.
The participating institutions list shows four things for each college: whether U.S. students must file, whether international students must file, whether a noncustodial parent must file, and whether the college collects documents through IDOC. Requirements vary. Lee points to Adrian College in Michigan, which requires the CSS Profile only from international students.
List only the colleges that require the CSS Profile. You’ll pay for each one, and you’ll list every college on the FAFSA anyway.
If a college on your list requires the CSS Profile, file it even if you don’t expect need-based aid, at least for the first year. Lee has filed for families with seven-figure incomes whose students still received something. Filing also shows a college you can afford to keep your student enrolled.
“Why take the risk of leaving anything on the table?” she says.
How to Fill Out the CSS Profile, Step by Step
To fill out the CSS Profile, sign in at cssprofile.org with your student’s College Board account, choose the 2027-28 application, add the colleges that require it, and enter student and parent information from your 2025 tax return and current account balances. Then review, pay, and submit.
Lee says a family with W-2 income and simple finances can enter everything in about an hour, while a business, investment property, or trust can stretch it to three hours, not counting time to gather documents. You can save and return anytime, and the form adapts to your answers.
Lee’s advice for every screen is to slow down and read the directions. She says this year’s directions are clearer than in past years, and the form tells you exactly which tax line to use. Families get into trouble, she says, when they multitask or rush.
If you’re unsure of an answer, click the Bookmark button in the upper right corner of the screen. Bookmarked screens collect in a Bookmarks menu at the bottom of the left navigation bar, so you can return to them before you submit.
Luanne Lee walks through the 2027-28 CSS Profile screen by screen in our Road2College webinar. The written steps below follow the same order, with links to the matching moments in the video.
Step 1: Gather Your Documents
Before you sign in, collect your 2025 federal tax return with all schedules, W-2s, 1099s, and 1098s for you and your student, plus current statements for bank, brokerage, retirement, and 529 accounts, your mortgage, and any home equity line. Business owners need their business returns too.
You’ll also need Social Security numbers, your student’s list of colleges that require the CSS Profile, and records for any trust, rental property, or other real estate. Check each Social Security number twice. Lee sees parents enter the wrong child’s number every year.
If your accountant is still finishing your 2025 return, wait. The CSS Profile asks for exact line items, and you can’t enter them from an estimate.
Write down each account balance on the day you file. The CSS Profile asks for current values, and if a college questions a number later, you’ll have a record. One Paying for College 101 parent keeps a spreadsheet of every balance because their student’s college has repeatedly asked for clarification.
Lee works on a laptop or desktop with her documents beside her. “I would never try to do this on a phone myself,” she says.
▶ Watch Luanne’s document checklist (3:51)
Step 2: Sign In With Your Student’s College Board Account
Parents complete the CSS Profile by signing in to their student’s College Board account, the one used for the SAT or AP exams, and selecting the 2027-28 application. Only a noncustodial parent, or a parent who wants financial privacy, creates a separate account.
Go to the College Board’s CSS Profile site, sign in with your student’s username and password, and choose the 2027-28 year. Lee says students shouldn’t fill it out on their own. “There’s no way that a student can do a CSS Profile. Don’t even think about it,” she says. Your student can sit with you, but you have the financial answers.
Signing in with your student’s account also lets the College Board apply an SAT fee waiver automatically. Parents who don’t want their student to see their income and assets can create their own College Board account. Lee calls that option “a pain,” and the College Board recommends using the student’s account instead.
If your student’s account uses a high school email address, change it to a personal address in the account profile rather than creating a second account. Twins need separate CSS Profiles, each filed under that twin’s own account.
▶ Watch Luanne sign in and choose the right year (5:21)
Step 3: Enter Student Information and Parent Relationships
The first sections cover the student: name, contact information, dependency questions, and Social Security number. Then you’ll list every parent, including stepparents and a deceased parent, and indicate which household provides most of the student’s financial support. That parent’s household completes the main application.
A few tips from Lee’s walkthrough:
- Your College Board financial aid ID appears after you save the first student screens. Write it down. You’ll use it to pick up where you left off and, later, to log in to IDOC.
- Leave the nickname field blank unless you want College Board mail addressed to the nickname.
- Answer the dependency and student status questions about your student, not yourself. The College Board says this is one of the most common parent mistakes; most high school seniors don’t support dependents and aren’t veterans.
- Enter your student’s Social Security number even though it’s optional. It helps colleges match the CSS Profile to the FAFSA and admission file, and they’ll see it on your tax returns anyway.
- Choose parent 1 and parent 2 carefully. If you switch them later, you’ll have to re-enter that parent’s information throughout the application.
Every section is marked as student or parent, but the years shift too: the CSS Profile asks about 2025, 2026, and 2027. Lee admits she still has to check, because anything related to college spans three years.
If parents are divorced or separated: The parent who provides the most financial support completes the main CSS Profile on the student’s account, along with a stepparent’s information if that parent has remarried. If a college requires the other parent’s information, enter that parent’s email address. The College Board invites them to create their own account and complete a separate noncustodial parent CSS Profile. Neither household sees the other’s information, as long as your student doesn’t share their login.
On the screens about the other parent, enter “unknown” for an address you don’t know, or the last ZIP code you know if the field requires one. Report the year you separated if you live in separate households for reasons other than work, even without a legal separation or divorce. If you don’t know whether the other parent will contribute, enter zero. If you report a written agreement, be ready to provide it. Keep the explanation box short. “This is not where you’re going to rant,” Lee says.
After you save the other parent’s email address, it disappears from the screen. That’s normal, and the invitation still goes out.
If you have no contact with the other parent, or contact would harm your family, ask each college how to request a noncustodial waiver. Expect to provide documentation from the court, a psychologist, or your student’s school counselor, and sometimes an essay from your student. Lee says an ex who won’t help pay for college, or who rarely pays child support, isn’t grounds for a waiver. For more, read our financial aid tips for divorced parents.
▶ Watch Luanne start the application (12:15)
▶ Watch Luanne explain the noncustodial parent waiver (10:41)
▶ Watch the screens about the other parent (42:43)
Step 4: Add Your Colleges
Add only the colleges that require the CSS Profile, since each one adds to your fee. Search by name, state, or CSS code, and confirm you’ve picked the right program code. Then answer each college’s questions about the student’s year in school and housing plans.
Some colleges have more than one listing. Lee uses Tulane University as an example: it appears twice, so check which code fits your student and write it down.
A few more details:
- A student who will finish high school with an associate degree still enters as a first-year undergraduate.
- If a college has already assigned your student an ID number, usually in the email confirming an application, enter it. If not, leave the field blank.
- First-year students typically plan to live on campus unless the college allows them to live at home.
Some colleges add their own questions, which appear once you select them.
▶ Watch Luanne check which colleges require the CSS Profile (6:52)
▶ Watch Luanne add colleges (19:28)
Step 5: Report Parent Income From Your 2025 Tax Return
The CSS Profile asks for specific lines from your 2025 Form 1040 and its schedules, such as adjusted gross income on line 11a. Enter exactly what each line shows, type zero when a line is blank, and use a minus sign, not parentheses, for losses.
Work from the return itself:
- Filing status is on page one of the 1040.
- Adjusted gross income is on line 11a. If it’s $100,000 or less, a note at the bottom of the screen confirms your fee waiver.
- Schedules 1, 2, and 3 come right after the two pages of the 1040 in your tax file, behind any cover pages from your preparer or software. If you don’t have one of these schedules, you didn’t need it, so don’t go looking.
- Wages are on line 1z. If you’re self-employed with no W-2 income, that line will be empty.
- For federal income tax, enter line 22 only. Don’t add line 24. “Don’t give it anything more than what it’s asking for,” Lee says.
- On Schedule 1, line 3 is business income or loss. Line 5 covers rental real estate, partnerships, and S corporations, and the CSS Profile asks later where that money came from. Line 16 covers only SEP, SIMPLE, and qualified plans for the self-employed, not your 401(k) or 403(b).
- On Schedule 3, the CSS Profile wants only line 3.
When a line is blank, Lee enters zero rather than skipping it. “I put zeros so that I know I’ve answered that question,” she says. If a parent earned income abroad, convert it to U.S. dollars.
▶ Watch Luanne enter the tax return line items (24:24)
▶ Watch how to enter losses and federal tax (27:57)
Step 6: Report Wages, Retirement Contributions, and Other Income
Each parent reports income from work using W-2s only, then the tax-deferred retirement and HSA contributions shown in W-2 box 12. Next come untaxed income, alimony received, 2026 income estimates, federal benefits, and whether you expect a significant change in 2027.
Don’t add self-employment or rental income to income from work. The CSS Profile picks those up from your tax return. As Lee puts it, “they’re going to get it. Believe me.”
Box 12 is where W-2s get tricky. Report the tax-deferred retirement contributions shown there, and if the codes don’t make clear which amount is your retirement contribution, ask your HR office. Lee says never to enter amounts coded AA or DD, because doing so inflates your income. For a health savings account, use the box 12 amount coded W, not a figure from Schedule 1.
Open every drop-down. Lee still does, after years of doing these, because the drop-downs spell out what to include and exclude. One example is Social Security benefits for your other children; the college student’s own benefits don’t go here. Untaxed income includes untaxed disability benefits. Report all alimony received in 2025, including cash payments that never appeared on a tax return.
Then the CSS Profile moves to 2026. Estimate this year’s income using year-to-date figures or a projection; it doesn’t need to be exact. If your interest income will drop because you spent savings, such as on a down payment, enter the lower figure.
The 2027 question asks whether you expect a significant change. Answer yes only if you’re confident it will happen, such as a layoff that has already occurred or a permanent disability, not a worry about future job security. If you answer yes, it asks what you expect.
Last, the federal benefits question includes free or reduced-price school lunch. If your school gives every student free lunch, don’t check that box unless your income would qualify on its own.
▶ Watch Luanne report wages and box 12 contributions (30:24)
▶ Watch when to report a significant change for 2027 (36:31)
Step 7: Answer the Employment and Retirement Questions
Each parent reports employment status, occupation, years in that field, and every retirement plan they’ve participated in, including old 401(k)s rolled into IRAs. The CSS Profile also asks for retirement balances. Lee says colleges “are not going to assess” them; they want to know how prepared you are for retirement.
A parent who stays home by choice should select retired or not employed by choice, not unemployed, even if they plan to return to work. Retirement income still counts. Lee is blunt about early retirees: colleges are “not going to take pity on you because you chose to retire at a time when you’ve got kids going through college.”
For years in your occupation, count your whole career in the field, not just your current employer.
On the retirement plans question, check every type of plan you’ve participated in, even one you no longer contribute to. Then enter each parent’s current balance. “Everybody says they don’t ask for that. They do,” Lee says. Include tax-deferred and after-tax retirement accounts. Leave out brokerage accounts and investment real estate, which belong in the assets section. Also leave out the cash value of life insurance, which Lee says isn’t reported anywhere on the CSS Profile.
▶ Watch Luanne explain the retirement balance question (41:17)
Step 8: Report Your Home, Household, and Siblings
Unlike the FAFSA, the CSS Profile asks about your home: purchase year and price, current value, total owed, and monthly payment. Then you’ll list your other dependents, including siblings in college or private school and what their education costs you.
If you live with family or friends and don’t pay rent, choose “live with others.” Lee says there’s no judgment in it; it simply gives colleges an accurate picture.
For a home you inherited, use its market value when you took possession, and look it up if you don’t know it. If you co-own the home with relatives, report only your share.
The amount owed is your mortgage balance plus any balance on a home equity line of credit or home equity loan. An open credit line you haven’t used adds nothing. For the monthly payment, enter principal and interest only, without escrow for taxes and insurance, and add any home equity payments.
In the household section, double-check each child’s date of birth. For a sibling already in college, the CSS Profile asks for that college’s total cost of attendance, the grants and scholarships the sibling received, and what you paid out of pocket. Divorced parents report only their own share. For a sibling in private elementary, middle, or high school, you’ll need the tuition you paid and any aid, so get those figures from the school first.
Twins who are both applying need separate CSS Profiles. Until you know where the other twin will enroll, use that twin’s first-choice college and its costs. Lee says colleges that use the CSS Profile account for two students in college at the same time and will verify enrollment later.
▶ Watch Luanne report home value and mortgage debt (48:44)
▶ Watch the household and sibling questions (49:46)
Step 9: Report Parent Expenses
The expenses section is where the CSS Profile can work in your favor. Report child support paid or received, unreimbursed medical and dental costs, education loan payments, and alimony paid. Keep receipts, because colleges may ask for documentation of large medical bills.
The child support questions separate support for the student applying from support for the whole family, so read each one before answering.
For medical and dental costs, the CSS Profile asks you to report them only if they topped 3% of your total income. Count only what you paid out of pocket. That includes insurance premiums you paid yourself, but not your employer’s share or anything insurance covered. If you itemized medical expenses on Schedule A, line 1, you can start from that figure. Each college then decides how much of those costs to allow.
The education loan questions cover loans for your own education or your children’s, including what you’ve paid and what you still owe.
▶ Watch Luanne report parent expenses (54:12)
Step 10: Report Assets and the Student’s Income
Report current values for parent cash, investments, and real estate other than your home, plus business or farm details if you own one. 529 plans for all your children count as parent assets. Then the student reports their own 2025 earnings, expected income, and assets.
The investments screen spells out what to include, such as 529 plans, trust funds, and commodities. Don’t include your home, a business or farm, or retirement plans, because each has its own section. “Don’t overstate things,” Lee says.
- Other real estate includes a second home, rental property, or land, whether or not it produces income.
- Business owners report figures from their business returns, such as Schedule C, Form 1120-S, or a K-1, plus details like the start date and other family owners. Report your business here even though the FAFSA no longer counts most small family businesses. Lee runs a one-person practice from a laptop, with no employees or storefront, and says her business has no value to report. A larger business needs a value from your accountant.
- Report assets held in your other children’s names, such as custodial accounts, where the form asks for them. The college student’s own UGMA or UTMA account is a student asset, so don’t list it under the parent.
Then it’s the student’s turn. If your student earned W-2 income in 2025 and you don’t have the form, request a copy from the employer, because you’ll likely need to upload it. Report only money already in hand, not scholarships your student hopes to win. Expected summer and school-year earnings can be zero for a student who hasn’t worked.
The CSS Profile also asks how much your student expects to receive from you. If you have a 529, divide it by four. Otherwise, enter what you can pay, such as $1,000 a month, and leave out money you plan to borrow. “It’s not a trick question. They can’t hold you to anything. Don’t overthink it,” Lee says. Report help from grandparents or other relatives only if it’s guaranteed.
Student assets include any trust in the student’s name, even one the student can’t touch yet; explain access limits in special circumstances. If your student has a Roth IRA, report its current value.
▶ Watch Luanne go through parent assets (55:40)
▶ Watch how to answer the parent contribution question (1:00:04)
Step 11: Explain Special Circumstances
Use the special circumstances section for brief, factual explanations: a job loss, elder care, exceptional medical bills, or a number that looks wrong but isn’t. Keep it short and unemotional. This is not a financial aid appeal, which comes later, after your student is admitted.
The final section opens by asking whether you’ve filed the FAFSA and, if so, your Student Aid Index. If you haven’t filed yet, you can leave it blank. If you want aid, file the FAFSA too.
Next, choose any special circumstances that apply, or “other” if none fits. A text box opens with a 2,000-character limit, which works out to about 300 words. “It’s time to remove the emotion,” Lee says. Name the change, the amount, and the year in a few sentences. What you write goes to every college that receives your CSS Profile, so save college-specific details for that college’s financial aid office.
The official special circumstances request, the one that can change an aid offer, comes after admission. This box simply puts the facts on record.
▶ Watch Luanne explain what belongs in special circumstances (1:02:27)
Step 12: Review, Pay, and Submit
Before you submit, the CSS Profile runs data checks that flag possible errors or missing information. Fix real mistakes, and explain correct-but-unusual entries in special circumstances. Then review every section, pay any fees, and submit. You can correct a submitted CSS Profile only once per year.
Data checks are warnings, not judgments. One might note that you reported rental income but no real estate, or interest income but no investments. If the entry is wrong, click through to the screen and fix it. If it’s right, add a sentence in special circumstances. Lee’s example: “I didn’t report any investment value because those assets were gone. I used it to put a down payment on a house.”
Then click “begin review” and go through every screen. One warning from Lee: if you qualify for a fee waiver and click “skip review,” the CSS Profile submits immediately. If you owe fees, nothing goes out until you pay by card or enter a fee payment code.
After you submit, the College Board emails a confirmation, and your dashboard shows your receipt, your colleges, and any next steps.
If you find a mistake later, click “Correct Your CSS Profile” on your dashboard. The College Board allows one correction per academic year, and corrections are free. Add any new colleges before you start a correction, because you can’t add them during one. After you’ve used your correction, contact each college’s financial aid office directly.
▶ Watch Luanne handle data check warnings (1:03:53)
▶ Watch the review and payment screens (1:05:01)
After You Submit: IDOC and School Portals
Submitting the CSS Profile doesn’t finish your aid file. Colleges that use IDOC, the College Board’s Institutional Documentation Service, may ask you to upload tax returns, W-2s, and other documents there. Other colleges request documents through their own student portals, which your student must check.
If a college needs documents through IDOC, the College Board emails your student. Your student signs in with the College Board financial aid ID, or with a Social Security number and date of birth. The IDOC dashboard then lists what each college needs and when. Submit everything by midnight Eastern time on your earliest deadline.
Lee’s one IDOC tip is to sign and date every tax return you upload with a pen, including business returns. Colleges ask for signed copies, and some won’t accept a typed signature. The College Board’s electronic signatures cover separate IDOC forms, which arrive by DocuSign email, not the tax returns you upload. The College Board says uploads take three to five business days to process, and each file must be 15 MB or smaller.
Then make sure someone is reading the mail. IDOC requests and missing-document notices go to your student, and as Lee notes, students don’t always read them. Each college also expects your student to create an account in its student portal, where most aid correspondence happens. That’s tedious for a student applying to 15 or 20 colleges, but skipping it can mean a missed request, a missed deadline, and lost institutional aid.
Don’t panic if a portal shows your CSS Profile as pending for a while. Lee says colleges may not download CSS Profiles for a month or so after receiving them. Look for a “received” check mark.
▶ Watch Luanne explain IDOC and the signature rule (1:06:06)
Common CSS Profile Mistakes to Avoid
Lee says the biggest problem is rushing past the directions, which leads to extra tax-return lines, wrong W-2 box 12 codes, and answers entered for the wrong year. Missing a college’s deadline or an IDOC request can cost even more, because incomplete files can lose institutional aid.
CSS Profile Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Mistake What to Do Instead
Starting before your 2025 tax return is final Wait for the final return; the CSS Profile asks for exact line items.
Letting your student fill it out alone Sit down together, with a parent entering the financial answers.
Answering student questions about yourself Answer dependency and student status questions about your student.
Entering the wrong child’s Social Security number Check every number against the Social Security card.
Adding tax lines the form didn’t ask for Enter only the line requested, such as line 22, not line 22 plus line 24.
Entering W-2 box 12 codes AA or DD Report only tax-deferred retirement contributions, plus code W for an HSA.
Including escrow in your mortgage payment Report principal and interest only.
Listing the college student’s UGMA or UTMA as a parent asset Report it as a student asset. 529s, by contrast, are parent assets for every child.
Reporting scholarships your student hasn’t won Report only money in hand.
Writing an emotional special circumstances note Keep it brief and factual; the appeal comes after admission.
Clicking “skip review” with a fee waiver Review first; with no fee due, skipping submits right away.
Ignoring IDOC and portal requests Watch your student’s email and portals, and upload signed tax returns on time.
How Much Does the CSS Profile Cost?
The CSS Profile costs $25 for the first college and $16 for each additional college. It’s free for U.S. undergraduates whose family adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less, who received an SAT fee waiver, or who are orphans or wards of the court under 24.
Sending the CSS Profile to five colleges, for example, costs $89. A fee waiver covers every college on your list, and the College Board says more than 40% of applicants qualify to file free.
You don’t apply for a waiver. The form checks as you go, and if your 2025 adjusted gross income qualifies, a note on the income screen tells you so. To get credit for an SAT fee waiver, sign in with the same College Board account your student used for the SAT.
A few more cost details:
- A noncustodial parent pays $25 once, no matter how many colleges require that parent’s CSS Profile. That parent pays nothing if their family adjusted gross income is $100,000 or less.
- You can add a college from your dashboard after you submit, for $16 unless you qualify for a waiver.
- Automatic waivers apply only to families living in the U.S. International families should ask each college about a fee waiver or fee payment code.
▶ Watch Luanne explain fees and fee waivers (8:36)
When Is the CSS Profile Due?
The 2027-28 CSS Profile opened Oct. 1, 2026, but there’s no single deadline. Each college sets its own, often tied to the admission plan, so Early Decision and Early Action dates come first. The College Board says to submit by midnight Eastern time on your earliest priority date.
Don’t wait for that midnight, though. Lee says it takes the College Board three to five days to deliver a submitted CSS Profile to colleges. At some colleges, the aid deadline for early applicants falls just days after the application deadline.
To find each date, search each college’s website for “financial aid deadlines.” Note the deadline for your student’s admission plan, because Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision dates differ. Lee is blunt about the stakes: miss a college’s CSS Profile deadline, and your student can lose institutional aid they were eligible for.
The federal FAFSA deadline is June 30, 2028, but that date doesn’t help here. Colleges set their own priority deadlines for the FAFSA too, often on the same date as the CSS Profile.
▶ Watch Luanne explain how to find every college’s aid deadline (1:13:59)
Get CSS Profile Help from Road2College
Want an expert to check your CSS Profile before you submit? Road2College’s CSS Profile Review pairs you with a Certified College Planning Specialist who goes through it with you live, flags problems, and sends you a recording of the session.
When aid offers arrive, Road2College’s Compare College Offers shows how your package compares with what other families received.
Also, use Road2College Insights to help find merit aid and schools that fit the criteria most important to your student. You’ll not only save precious time, but your student will avoid the heartache of applying to schools they aren’t likely to get into or can’t afford to attend.
CSS Profile FAQ
Many of these questions came from parents in our 2027-28 CSS Profile webinar. The short version: plan to file every year your student receives institutional grants, file the FAFSA alongside the CSS Profile, and save your one correction for a real error.
Do you have to file the CSS Profile every year?
Usually, if your student receives grants from the college. Lee says colleges want to see each year whether they’ll give you the same aid or less. A few colleges require a new CSS Profile only if your finances change. If you borrow federal loans, file the FAFSA every year.
When you plan for four years of costs, factor in any expected change in your finances, good or bad, because it can affect your student’s aid in later years.
▶ Watch Luanne answer the every-year question (1:08:41)
Does the CSS Profile count home equity?
The CSS Profile asks about it, and the FAFSA doesn’t. You’ll report your home’s value and what you owe, and each college then decides how much equity to count. That means the same house can affect your aid differently from one college to the next.
Can you change your CSS Profile after you submit it?
Once. The College Board allows one correction per academic year through the “Correct Your CSS Profile” link on your dashboard, at no charge. Add any new colleges first, since you can’t add them during a correction. After that, contact each college’s financial aid office about further changes.
What if my ex won’t fill out the noncustodial CSS Profile?
It depends on the college, Lee says. Your student may not receive the full amount of aid, and when one father refused, a college told the mother, “Well, our school is not for you then.” If the other parent is truly absent or unsafe to contact, request a noncustodial waiver.
▶ Watch Luanne answer the uncooperative-ex question (1:12:47)
Is the information on the CSS Profile private?
The College Board sends your CSS Profile only to the colleges you select. Lee’s view: you already share the same details with the IRS, security measures are good, and anything can be hacked. If privacy matters more than aid and you’ll pay full price, you can skip it.
▶ Watch Luanne answer the privacy question (1:12:02)
Should you file the FAFSA and CSS Profile at the same time?
Lee files both at once. If weeks pass between them, update your asset values, since both forms want balances as of the day you file. Income comes from the same 2025 tax return on both. The CSS Profile also asks for your Student Aid Index if you’ve filed the FAFSA.
▶ Watch Luanne explain FAFSA and CSS Profile timing (1:17:30)
Can international students file the CSS Profile?
Yes. Many colleges require the CSS Profile from international applicants seeking aid, sometimes even when U.S. students don’t need it. Automatic fee waivers apply only to U.S. residents, so international families should ask each college about fee waivers or alternatives. Check the participating institutions list for each college’s rules.
