custodial parent vs salaried parent on FAFSA

Paying for College
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<p>My point wasn’t to suggest that people are actually faking their own deaths to get their hands on Pell grants, but that I don’t think it’s especially common for people to cheat on the FAFSA (especially, as you point out so often, it has quite a few loopholes that can be honestly used). How many phony 0 EFCs do you think there are, by the way? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen at all, but I don’t think that it’s as common as you think it is. I’d also like to know where the $22k is coming from here.</p>

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<p>“As a crude measure of who provided the most support, my mortgage + property taxes were twice what my ex-H’s rent was.”
Your ex lives in the same town as you and the school? If not, then your higher cost of living definitely qualifies you as providing more support, and probably even if the ex lives in the same town. In MA, joint custody was awarded with a “primary residence”, so that could be a factor.
Who took the tax deduction in 2009 and took the child tax credit when they were under 17?</p>

<p>Run the EFC calculators for each option and see which one is best. I think this is totally fair in a situation where the support from each parent is basically equal. One parent was supplying 50% even though they had less income and a higher cost of living, and will probably have to foot 50% of the college bills. A lot of profile schools will still look at the other parent anyway.
Unless both of you have other live-in partners, your family has much higher expenses than intact families. Example - car - if your kid needs to have use of a car, you really have to buy them a car, since otherwise they could only drive when you do not need the car. In a 2 parent household, there are usually 2 cars already. Insurance on the kid’s car is much higher than just adding them to an existing policy (at least an additional $1000).</p>

<p>My ex is supposed to pay 50%, but I will be lucky if he pays for anything at all.</p>

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<p>*But there’s wiggle room to be dishonest about different issues on the FAFSA. People can hide $100K in their mattresses and no one would ever know. *</p>

<p>It’s very difficult for someone to have $100k in a mattress…too rare to even consider.</p>

<p>*“For every phony 0 EFC, that’s at least $22k of tax payer money (not counting sub loans, work-study, and other fed grants).”</p>

<p>How do you figure it’s <em>at least</em> 22K without sub loans, ws and other federal grants? Again, there are all sorts of lies people can make. *</p>

<p>4 years multiplied by $5550 = $22k. That’s a substantial amount of money to be defrauding. </p>

<p>*but that I don’t think it’s especially common for people to cheat on the FAFSA *</p>

<p>Do you realize how many kids post here on CC with exactly that fraudulent scenario of claiming the lower income parent - even if the higher income parent should be claimed. It’s the one area that is least area to “catch” unless the low income parent lives in an area that is not near the child’s high school. </p>

<p>*Divorced families really do not have some advantage. Child support is listed as ‘income’ on the FAFSA *</p>

<p>Of course, all divorced families do not have an advantage. I would never say that. </p>

<p>But, child support ends at 18 in nearly every state…so, that income disappears when the child is in college. And, child support is a small fraction of the paying parent’s income. The CP could have $20k in earnings and $10k from child support…and the child would still get Pell…even if the NCP’s earnings were significant.</p>

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<p>Thanks, everyone, for giving me a seminar on FAFSA finepoints! So much to find out about.</p>

<p>The custodial parent designation is crystal clear to me now. My sons do live way more than 50% of time with me, and only a small part of their support comes from the ex. </p>

<p>I didn’t express it clearly, but I was worried that by my doing the FAFSA, the ex would be out of the picture. But the CSS will cover his information, though I am sure my ex will do the best possible job to cut down on amount available to pay for college, but that’s beyond my control.</p>

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<p>Woe be to those parents of joint custody who have made the mistake of allowing their child to sleep 183 days at the residence of the higher-income parent during the base year!</p>

<p>And double woe to those parents who have compounded that mistake by allowing their child to overnight at a friend’s house (or forgot it was leap year) and thus exactly split “support” and have the FAFSA be based on both their incomes!</p>

<p>I submit the FAFSA is structured knowing that the rules effectively allow parents to manipulate the situation in their own favor. I further submit it is structured thus so as to avoid the need to ascertain the status of the non-custodial parent: have they been, or can they be expected to be, supportive? They don’t want to tackle this issue, so they omit the income of the non-custodial parent. And because they don’t scope in non-custodial income they can’t effectively scope in joint-custodial income either, because to do so is really to penalize joint-custody. So they permit an easy out.</p>

<p>(BTW, even if joint-custodial income were included, couldn’t it be avoided if a cooperative set of divorced parents simply agreed to have the court assign outright custody to one parent while still in practice continuing with a joint custodial arrangement?)</p>

<p>In truth there is probably a tipping point whereby the pursuit of “fairness” gets in the way of function. It is certainly fractious and probably not cost-effective to try to determine who the student really is living with or when a non-custodial parent is really “absent”. And it would be unfair to all students to consume resources trying to make these determinations rather than distribute it as aid. For Profile schools, on the other hand, with more of a commitment to provide aid (to 100% need in many cases) and in general with fewer cases to consider, it might be worthwhile to pursue these matters further. Hence these schools try to probe more deeply into the financial situation of divorced families. (They are also helped by the fact that these probes are more likely to be tolerated from a private entity one is choosing to apply to rather than from a governmental agency like the DoE.)</p>

<p>The design of the rules in mind, I think the ethically simplifying principals are these (1) Tell the truth, (2) Play by the rules, and (3) Where the rules allow you discretion, choose so as to leverage the rules. Thus, in the case of joint custody, make sure the future student is sleeping at the residence of the lower-income parent over 50% of the time and feel justified in reporting this on the FAFSA.</p>

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<p>He did, when the boys were in high school. They’re in college now. It’s trickier to determine who the custodial parent is when kids are only home in the summer. I’m not sure where they’ll be spending most of their time, will depend on summer jobs.</p>

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<p>We each took one, per the terms of our settlement agreement. Who claims the kids on taxes is irrelevant for FAFSA.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately as many divorced parents can attest to here, it’s not always easy to get cooperation from non-custodial parents. Maybe you’ll be an exception - good luck!</p>

<p>Descartesz you make good points, and might add that no college wants to be tackling the issue of who supports whom in a divorce situation. So many college financial aid websites deal with divorce by saying basically “we don’t get in the middle of who pays, just give us all of your income/asset data and we’ll give you back a number for you to all pay.”</p>

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<p>mom2collegekids,</p>

<p>“It’s very difficult for someone to have $100k in a mattress…too rare to even consider.”</p>

<p>I have a relative who had that kind of money stuffed in a hollowed-out piece of furniture once. He died and the family rented out the apartment-- only to find out the tenant who was replacing the fridge hollowed out part of the wall and disappeared. We believe he had hidden money there too. </p>

<p>“4 years multiplied by $5550 = $22k. That’s a substantial amount of money to be defrauding.” </p>

<p>You make the assumption that the ‘true’ non-custodial parent is entitled to a full Pell and the ‘true’ custodial parent wouldn’t qualify for <em>any</em> Pell. </p>

<p>"It’s the one area that is least area to “catch” unless the low income parent lives in an area that is not near the child’s high school. "</p>

<p>Least easy to catch? </p>

<p>The truth is most schools know exactly with whom a kid lives. Most divorced parents are not on greatest terms and don’t live near each other. Most divorced parents don’t go to those lengths to cooperate on fraud. It would be far easier to hide or lie about assets. It would be far easier to make income ‘off the books’ as many do. </p>

<p>“Of course, all divorced families do not have an advantage.”</p>

<p>ALL? First, FEW children in single-parent households are at an advantage (economic or otherwise) from similar children in two-parent households BUT, assuming you are simply talking about the FAFSA, you are ignoring that FAFSA gives two-parent households an advantage in another section: the asset protection allowance. Not only is it more than twice what it is for a single-parent, but it will use the age of the older parent. </p>

<p>“child support ends at 18 in nearly every state…so, that income disappears when the child is in college. And, child support is a small fraction of the paying parent’s income.”</p>

<p>Huh? Well, first, most families have more than 1 child so the custodial parent may indeed have child support while one kid is in college. And child support is NOT a small fraction of the paying parent’s income. In my state, the <em>minimum</em> chart had my exspouse paying 33% of gross income. My friend was just divorced and can barely make it she says despite being awarded about 50% of her husband’s gross income. (The reason she can’t make it is because the divorce attorneys’ fees forced the sale of her house and they are currently suing her for more.) </p>

<p>"The CP could have $20k in earnings and $10k from child support…even if the NCP’s earnings were significant. "</p>

<p>Yes, and do you know why? Because it’s very difficult to live much less pay college tuition on $30K a year even if it is only supporting 2 people. It is not a loophole. If you were to require ncp information for kids of divorced parents, a lot of those kids would never go to college. The rules are not a mistake. </p>

<p>That’s an entirely different issue from the area in which we agree: that people should not lie on their FAFSA forms.</p>

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<p>“But, child support ends at 18 in nearly every state…so, that income disappears when the child is in college. And, child support is a small fraction of the paying parent’s income. The CP could have $20k in earnings and $10k from child support…and the child would still get Pell…even if the NCP’s earnings were significant.”
In some states it’s in the divorce decree - and the decree can state that support is paid until the child graduates from college. I think this was asked on the CSS college supplement. It also asked how much support was ordered as opposed to what was actually paid. So I will have some explaining to do.</p>