^^^^^
Right! And if PJ was used due to extenuating circumstances presented with proof (huge uncovered med bills, job loss), then the EFC could have been lowered thru PJ…but then the EFC wouldn’t be $8775…it would be somewhere around 6000 or smaller.
Someone with a 8775 EFC would not get a Pell grant. That would be against fed regulation.
So either the EFC was 8775 and no Pell grant…or the parent appealed with proof of extentuating circumstances and the EFC was lowered to below about 6000.
The maximum Pell Grant is about $5900. The FAFSA EFC has to be below that amount to qualify for a portion of the Pell. If the EFC is above…I think $5500…the student would get NO Pell Grant.
Of course it is by school. U of Chicago and Vandy don’t require the NCP for any applicant. Most schools are not waiving the NCP when the NCP refuses to file. If you want to add your school to UofC and Vandy as schools that don’t require it, do so. That helps parents like the poster who knows her husband won’t file.
I have a friend who is counting on schools that don’t require it. She has an ex, he is an idiot and will not do anything to help the child, but he still pays child support, there is no court order for him not to see the children, he’s not in jail, he lives in the same city as his kids. I think she’s not going to win the argument that he shouldn’t have to fill out the CSS NCP documents just because he doesn’t want to.
“If you want to add your school to UofC and Vandy as schools that don’t require it, do so.”
My point here is that it’s nuanced: It’s not do-or-die; it’s not black or white, it’s not one of schools that either require or don’t require NCP Profile info. It’s about schools using their own version of Profile-PJ (if you will) to waive their own requirement for NCP info when/if the situation fits. In some of the cases in which we waived NCP reqs, the divorces and legal separations were ugly enough that the NCP did not want his/her tax information listed on the Student Portal for the ex-spouse to see.
If the school reveals the personal tax information of the NCP on the student portal, that’s a failure by the school to protect sensitive data that should be closely held. Of course an NCP would be reluctant to provide the information if this was going to be the result, or upset with the school afterwards if that’s when the NCP learned about the privacy violation. Shame on any school that can’t get this right.
Even if the college scrupulously protects each divorced parent’s finances from the other, it is probably not difficult for either parent to reverse engineer the other parent’s finances using his/her own finances and the financial aid offer that the student gets.
I’ll just disagree with you, @Politipotamus that lots of schools are looking at the nastiness of Divorce A over Divorce B and waiving the NCP for Student A after all the forms are required, long into the process. Unless the school states up front that it will not consider the NCP, the Student will have to take the chance, apply in Dec or Jan and not know until April whether the school will even consider FA without NCP information.
I know a student going through this right now. Father isn’t unreachable, is employed (makes a lot), lives in the same town. There is a court order for child support that I believe is paid monthly or at least was paid as recently as 2 years ago. There is no court order restricting contact, and in fact I think the visitation order is still in place but everyone hates everyone and there is no contact right now except through the courts. This family has applied for the NCP waivers at schools that require them, but they have not heard back from any of those schools so don’t know right now if those waivers will be granted (I don’t think they will be since there is a way to contact the father). Good news is that student has been accepted to an FAFSA only school with a big FA award.
“Your college lists non-custodial parent financials on the student portal? Really?”
The colleges have nothing to do with the Student Portal in Profile (maybe you’re thinking of a student’s profile at a given school?). The Student Portal I’m referring to is the CSS Profile’s Student Portal -which is privy only to the student (and family). The Student Portal (I’ll refer to it as ‘SP’) includes a list of the student’s application schools; what docs each school is still awaiting; a list of documents that the student has uploaded (eg: 1040s, W-2s, etc., from both custodial and non-custodial parents when there are custodial and non-custodial households in play); a document upload portal; and a ‘Update your family information’ link where a list of parents and marital status’ of both custodial and non-custodial parents reside.
For the record, I don’t work on the school-side anymore; my profession is in CSS Profile testing, QA, and customer service.
“If the school reveals the personal tax information of the NCP on the student portal, that’s a failure by the school to protect sensitive data that should be closely held. Of course an NCP would be reluctant to provide the information if this was going to be the result, or upset with the school afterwards if that’s when the NCP learned about the privacy violation. Shame on any school that can’t get this right.”
You’re confused on the intent and purpose of Profile’s Student Portal. As long as Profile has been around, it’s been that way.
The school DOES NOT supply any info to the Student Portal; It is the student and the parents (both CP and NCP) -NOT the school- who place/upload the CP and NCP tax documentation, etc., into the Student Portal. That same info is also transmitted to each specific school requiring the info for their institutional funds awarding process.
“Even if the college scrupulously protects each divorced parent’s finances from the other, it is probably not difficult for either parent to reverse engineer the other parent’s finances using his/her own finances and the financial aid offer that the student gets.”
That cannot happen. Why? Because the documentation (eg. an IRA Form 1040) uploaded by parents and students is static; from the Student Portal, they can only read or view it as a PDF or jpeg. Meanwhile, the data from the 1040 (for example) is extracted from the PDF, etc., placed into a data file, and then sent to each of the financial aid offices at the applicant’s schools.
“I’ll just disagree with you, @Politipotamus that lots of schools are looking at the nastiness of Divorce A over Divorce B and waiving the NCP for Student A after all the forms are required, long into the process. Unless the school states up front that it will not consider the NCP, the Student will have to take the chance, apply in Dec or Jan and not know until April whether the school will even consider FA without NCP information.”
Again, when I advised the parent on her posted question, I meant that this is done by schools when a parent requests special consideration to explain extenuating circumstances. I know this from working in a financial aid office; it’s no different than when PJ is used to waive DOE requirements in awarding federal aid; Same situation.
Reverse engineering can be done without access to the other parent’s financial documentation.
For example, if one parent know his/her own finances and the student’s financial aid package, it should not be difficult to make a reasonable guess at the other parent’s finances by putting in the one parent’s known finances and guesses of the other parent’s finances in the college’s net price calculator until the one parent finds a guess that produces a net price calculator result similar to the student’s financial aid package.
Of course, net price calculators may not be that precise, and there may be various combinations of income and assets that yield the same financial aid package, but reverse engineering at least ranges of the other parent’s finances is doable even when the other parent’s financial documentation are kept private.
I’m not talking about a student portal that CSS maintains; I’m talking about a portal that a school might have. That being said, if CSS establishes and maintains a student portal that makes available to the student (and potentially by extension the custodial parent as well) the private and sensitive financial information of a non-custodial parent, that’s the same kind of failure that I’m referring to in the post that you quote above.
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Reverse engineering can be done without access to the other parent’s financial documentation.
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Absolutely…
Imagine the low income mom who knows that her income alone would yield full aid at a full need school, but Susie only got a $5k grant. All she has to do is go to the npc and plug in a few options of income/assets that result only in a $5k grant and she’ll have some insight into her ex’s financials. The ex who has been claiming poverty post-divorce would certainly be somewhat exposed .
There are potentially an unlimited number of income/asset combinations that could result in the NPC showing a $5k grant. Certainly the size of the EFC is a clue into the NCP’s financial situation, but that one number is not going to divulge any details.
Even that somewhat-limited clue may be something that a divorced ex-spouse still mentally litigating the divorce does not want to reveal to the other ex-spouse.