<p>You would be better off with your mother being your custodial parent, if you can manage to live with her a bit more than with your father the year before you go to college. With that income, you would likely have a zero EFC and be eligible for full PELL of a little over $5K.</p>
<p>Here is how financial aid generally works. You have to complete a FAFSA with your custodial parent and his/her spouse. This is for government money. Your non custodial parent does not complete this. The number generated, your Expected Family Contribution will be what qualifies you for the PELL grant and other FEderal aid. PELL and Stafford loans are not given by the colleges, but by the federal government to the college you end up going to. </p>
<p>Those colleges that tend to guarantee to meet need, to not just use FAFSA. They will want ALL your information including non custodial parent and spouse as well as the custodial parent, primary home equity, and they will come up with a package based on that information.</p>
<p>The thing is, the schools that use FAFSA alone do not guarantee to meet your need most of the time, though a high scoring, high grades student may well get need met. So you have to balance these things when applying to colleges.</p>
<p>The reason outside scholarships can be important is that it is very difficult to get need 100% met even in schools that guarantee it, in pure grants. You may get work study and loans in your package and most schools will let you replace those with outside awards before hitting up the need based grants. It gives you more flexibility to have that money in hand, so don’t just discount it out of hand. There really are very few students who are privileged enough to have grant money reduced by outside scholarships.</p>