Here goes. Student lives with grandparents. Biological mother and father never married. Has lived with grand parents since birth. Grandparents have not adopted and receive no support. Grandparents will have to pay college. fafsa and profile based on biological mother and current spouse. ($ 30,000. a year income, no assets, cancer survivor , extensive medical bills.) non css profile on father and spouse. heres the question. Father remarried, income 50,000, wife income 75,000 ,three children,small savings, little equity and minor retirement fund. Will the college take into full account fathers spouses income and three children? is there a weighted formula to calculate ( IM formula) step parent to parent or they just look at total combined incomes. Student is 17 and a Jr.in school and offered baseball opportunity at George Washington univ. College wants us to early commit. At Biological mother and father income only we would probably do ok but when you add in fathers spouse im not sure. Any Thoughts
Cannot even begin to answer your question.
Just wanted to say I know GW gives a lot of merit money so try that route with them.
As for your real issue no idea but you may also have one with the grandparents themselves. There is some question on CSS about getting support from other than parents, they may factor in grandparent contributions as additional non taxed income. Also, if grandparents pay tuition, that will also be considered income to some schools - not sure but something you may want to ask about.
I wouldn’t commit to anything until I had an offer form financial aid in wiring, which means explaining everything you explained here to them. This is a complex situation and every school will handle it differently.
Student will have to pick a parent to be the custodial parent for the FAFSA and the profile. It should be the parent student lived with most and provided the most support in the prior 12 months. If student is looking at a school that uses the CSS profile/non-custodial profile unless there was s reason (child placed in the legal guardianship of grandparents) then schools will look at the income/assets of both parents and spouses as both parents are benefitting from their respective marriages whether or not they are willing to pay.
As far as mom having unreimbursed medical expenses, she can list it on the profile and it will be something that schools will consider.
Is GW a div 1 school in baseball? If yes will student be offered a scholarship? Hopefully @twoinanddone will chime in as to whether you would be able to stack athletic with merit money and navigating this process
I guess basically what I’m asking is how is it right to look at 4 incomes. Do they have a weighted formula where they weigh the step parent to bio parent, or do they just take total incomes and calculate your contribution. Doesn’t seem right.
Why is it not right? The school is calculating a family contribution. All,of these folks are in the student’s family.
Where do the bio parents live? I guess the big question is…if these bio parents were so irresponsible, why didn’t the grandparents go,for legal guardianship. If hat had happened…the kid would be independent for financial aid purposes.
Completely fine with bio mother and father taking responsibility. However not the step parents. They have nothing to do with this student. Grandparents do have guardianship and custody however he was Never a ward of the court or was not adopted by grandparents.
Is this kiddo in a legal guardianship? Are his grandparents his legal guardians…something set up through the courts?
If the student is in a court appointed guardianship…with the grandparents as his legal guardians, then he would be independent for financial aid purposes. Do the grandparents have legal guardianship papers issued by a court?
The kid does not have to have ward of the court…or be adopted by the grandparents. In fact…if he were adopted by his grandparents THEY would actually be his parents for financial aid purposes.
The step parents have income that contributes to their family finances. That is why they are included in the FAMILY contribution. There is more money available to the whole family because of the i mimes of these step parents.
If the child is in a legal guardianship, they would file the fafsa as independent. This is a different criteria from being ward of the court or adopted. Is the child in a legal guardianship declared by a court of law? It doesn’t have to be a Dept of Social Services situation. All legal guardianships I am familiar with were declared in a court of law, even if uncontested.
In that situation, as far as fafsa, NO parental income is required. However, Profile is a different ballgame and the colleges can do whatever they want. They are giving away their own money and if they want to factor in your next door neighbor, they can, but read on, the prospects are actually not bleak.
Our family was in a very similar situation. I called each college being applied to and 8 out of 9 of them wanted the legal guardian’s financial info on the Profile and no NCP. One college wanted to argue about whether the student should file fafsa as independent, even though that part is very simple and spelled out in black and white in the fafsa instructions. So we just eliminated that college from consideration because we didn’t want them to somehow contest the fafsa and foul up or delay FinAid from other schools.
Situation was very similar to yours. Child raised by relative, had contact with both bio parents who were not together and had never been married to each other. Guardian in our case does receive state-mandated child support from one bio parent. Eight colleges factored in only the legal guardian’s financial info and nothing from either bio parent, and certainly no stepparents.
You didn’t mention how well off the grandparents are, but most likely, it is their income and assets that will be evaluated. Retirement accounts are not expected to be used for college expenses.
Guardianship is not through the courts. Wish we new 17 years ago what we were in for. I paid for 17 years. Guess I’ll pay 4 more years. Just wanting to no how much impact the step parents info had with the father on the non custodial.
There ARE colleges that require the Profile but do NOT require the non-custodial parent Profile. Maybe you should be looking for those schools.
And schools that use only the FAFSA won’t require the non-custodial parent information…at…all.
Is it too late to get guardianship now? Or did this need to be done before a certain age to count for Fafsa?
Student has done well in school. 3.8 unweighted and 30 act. I no George Washington does give a fair amount of money for merit and need based. Being offered the baseball comittment may also have some impact. I do appreciate all the help. I don’t know how much you need to make to not qualify for aid. Like I said before his custodial parent is about poverty level however his non custodial parent and spouse are approx 120000 before any deductions and 3 children. We will see.
Don’t know about that one. I’m thinking it would be to late
Can you shop around to other athletic programs?
Absolutely we can. He is a Jr. We have had several baseball offers it just GW was his top school and we were trying to make it happen. We still have time.
FWIW on Stanford and Dartmouth websites it says in cases of divorced parents, to run the NPC separately for each parent/stepparent to see what each family will contribute. As far as I can tell, stepparent income is not treated differently.
Also FWIW, it’s not too late to get legal guardianship if you think it would be helpful.
I believe you need to gain legal guardianship prior to the kiddi’s 18th birthday…so if this is an option…get going on it!
Not sure that would be the right move. With an income of 150000 might get less . Guess I could always retire.
Might be better to see if kid can be emacipated? Not sure that will help either since he does not support himself.
Run the NPC with the grandparent as the parent.
If it helps, my friend’s son I think got 15-25k from GW, he was not an athlete, it was academic but his stats were just ok. I think 2070 and around the top 10% of his class but without a lot of APs. I suspect his essays were good because he got merit money from a lot of places without filling out a FAFSA (Union, Syracuse and some others).