<p>So, my mother recently remarried this guy who has a lot of money in investments (none of which is liquid) and the EFC is light years ahead of what we can actually afford. They have a sort of partnership marriage in that he pays his half of the bills and she pays her half of the bills and her children (me and my sister).</p>
<p>Anyway, he doesn't really know me and isn' willing to pay for me to go to school. My financial aid award is only about 1/4 of the tuition for the school which leaves me substantially disenfranchised. The remaining amount is about 35,000 a year. Supposing I found a lender that would give me that much money, is that even wise? I'm pretty sure this is a fairly common problem, any solution that doesn't have me swallowing in debt?</p>
<p>Wow, that sucks. My partner and I have the same sort of arrangement -- we share living expenses, but my children's financial needs are my responsibility, not his. As a result, we won't ever marry as long as I have children in college, because it would ruin their financial aid. </p>
<p>I sort of think it's a shame about the remarriage "penalty". I guess if my partner and I had met each other when I was the custodial parent (I wasn't) or when my children were little (they weren't), I might expect him to help support them in college. But really, remarriage is the only situation I can think of where the powers that be expect people that loosely related to provide for a student's education.</p>
<p>I also find that remarriage penalty rather astounding. And quite unfortuate you, merdavis2. So sorry you have to deal with this. </p>
<p>Is your natural father involved or able to contribute? Was there any sort of joint custody? Were his income and assets lower, and you had lived with him, he could be the one whose assets were counted, not your mom and new husband. Though I don't know how it would go over to make this change mid stream, as it is supposed to be based on which parent you were with the most.</p>
<p>I think you should pick a more affordable school if possible, it may break your heart now but so will $35K in loans (is that per year or in the aggregate?).</p>
<p>You have unfortunately fallen into a category that makes you ineligible for most financial aid, yet unable to pay for the education through no fault of your own. You are in the same category as those kids who have parents who can afford to pay but won't, have assets that look like they can pay, but in reality would endanger their earnings and retirement if they do, or parents who are illegal aliens or have some legal arrangement preventing use of asset for college that the colleges won't honor. There isn't really any way around these situations as it is the parents' responsibility to take care of undergrad costs just as it is for them to take care of the highschool education for their children. It's just the way the rules are written.</p>
<p>Well, actually the whole "marriage" thing really is problematical for financial aid. I actually did figure out a rather simply solution to the parental marriage mess -- that's for the student to marry another student. Married students are independent for financial aid purposes -- so marriage of the student is one possible way to cut off consideration of the income of the natural parent's spouse.</p>
<p>Actually, merdavis, my daughter mentioned to me that she does have friends who married in order to improve their financial aid status, including at least one friend who is married to someone other than the person she loves -- which is fine with her spouse. </p>
<p>I don't like the idea of a "marriage of convenience" but I think such marriages have taken place as long as the institution of marriage existed; in fact, I think the notion of "love" being a prerequisite for marriage is something of a modern invention characteristic only of Western societies.</p>
<p>Backing up here a bit, what do you estimate the EFC would have been had your mother not married this man? Would this college at 45K have been affordable with just your mother's income as consideration? Just wondering.</p>
<p>I'd either find a less expensive school OR find another "financial aid casualty" and marry that person "on paper," so both of you would enjoy improved eligibility. I think that idea, suggested by calmom, is brilliant.</p>
<p>Calmom: Yup, as I've written elsewhere, my ex-husband and I married while we were undergrads because his parents were of the refusing-to-pay variety. They would not stop claiming him on income taxes even though they had cut him off and would not support him, so we got married at the end of the year to give us benefits for the whole year.</p>
<p>I don't want to be the one pushing for either sham or hurried marriages -- I'm not altogether sure it would work, in any case, to actually get financial aid, given the fact that the amount a student qualifies for is not necessarily the same as what the student gets. So I don't think the idea is "brilliant" ... just something that may offer a solution to some individuals. It simply would be a little ironic if a student marriage was the way to "undo" the negative financial aid impact of a parent's marriage. </p>
<p>Just curious, TrinSF -- did your first marriage dissolve soon after school, or did it last longer?</p>
<p>Calmom: Oh, we were married for almost more than 10 years and had two children. If the circumstances were different, we might still have gotten married, but it probably would have been several years later (after we finished college) instead of after only 5 months of courtship.</p>