<p>My mom adamantly refuses to fill out FAFSA because she is entirely "95%" convinced we will not get it. However we are still a middle class family, and she will not fill me in on the details. I think that the reason she believes this is that she has my parent's retirement savings in a non-retirement account, because my dad owns his own business and my mom makes money in stocks. </p>
<p>She admits she can't swing the 4 year tuition for University of Michigan, but insists we won't qualify because of the arrangement of our assets. I should add that she recently got an inheritance and that largely may be a part of it.</p>
<p>I also don't have any documents or such. Please don't tell me to convince my mom because it is literally impossible. Any advice is really helpful.</p>
<p>Well…sort of. If your parents are willing to complete a form saying they are not responsible for ANY of your living expenses, or support, you can complete the FAFSA for purposes of getting the Direct Loan only. You would be eligible for the $5500 freshman year allotment plus an additional $4000. That would not pay your cost to attend UMich.</p>
<p>As Thumper says, you can get those loans, filing them out yourself, and they may well be the only aid that you get anyways if your parents have the income and assets that do not make them eligible for aid. And yes, if retirement money is not in qualified accounts, it’s counted as assets usable for school. But there is an asset protection allowance of about $50K (depends on age of oldest parent and # if dependents) and then the percentage of assets taken towards EFC is about 5.6%. The hit is even more on the income. If you have some idea what their income is for the year, you can run that through the EFC estimator and see what that come out saying your family should be paying</p>
<p>UMich does guarantee to meet full need, so the thing is, if you do have need, it would be met by them. What do your parents propose doing if they do not qualify for financial aid but they still can’t afford to pay for college for you, and what do they propose you do? </p>
<p>You can ask your dad if his accountant and he can fill out the FAFSA. Enlist his aid if your mom won’t budge. But she may well be right in that you do not qualify for fin aid. That is a possibility too, and you need to think about what you can do if your parents won’t pay.</p>
<p>have your mom fill out the net price calculator on Umich’s website.</p>
<p>she is probably right, but this will you a heads up.</p>
<p>FYI. UMich requires both CSS profile and FAFSA.
If you are from oos, your CoA would be around $54k-$55k next year.</p>
<p>Your mom may be mixing up qualifying for federal loans and getting need based aid. She may be right about the need based aid. And your dad’s small business could work against you as well. But you still could quality for federal loans. That is a pretty good deal, and has more protections for you than other types of loans you might take out. That is why you would want her to fill out the FAFSA (which she can’t do until January 1 of next year anyway).</p>
<p>Agree that the net price calculator can a useful tool to see if you might get any aid. I would suggest you have her enter the approximate value of the assets of your dad’s business (or the value of his portion of it) as a personal asset to get a more accurate assessment of how the college would look at it. </p>
<p>Do you live in Michigan? What other schools are you considering? Have you asked your parents how much they can pay?</p>
<p>Look at the full tuition to full ride merit scholarship lists in the sticky threads at the top of this forum to make your application list. These will be your college shopping lists, since your parents effectively won’t let you get financial aid but are unable or unwilling to pay list price for college.</p>
<p>I believe the OP is instate for Michigan.</p>
<p>Then, the in state CoA would be near $28k next year.
OP should ask parents to run the NPC at UMich. You would need to submit FAFSA if you want any federal loan.</p>