<p>I'm trying to figure this out but I need to know what kind of questions to ask to help her. This is a single mom with two kids. The dad has not been in the picture since I have known them when they were preschoolers. He doesn't even call them. She married another man when they were in early elementary. They just recently divorced and the kids are now 9th and 7th. As I said, I don't know if their "real" father has paid any child support or not or if he had to since she remarried. What responsiblity will the "real" dad have for college costs? For FAFSA, will they need his information. The step dad never adopted them or anything but he is very involved in their lives, still taking them to soccer games and such.. They never had additional children either.</p>
<p>If the mom is currently divorced, and the kidos reside with her, only the motherr’s information will be required on the FAFSA. If she receives any spousal support, that will need to be listed as well. Info from the biological dad and step dad would not be on the FAFSA at all if the mom is the custodial.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, if the kis apply to any schools requiring information from the non custodial parent using the Profile of a school form, they will either need to apply for a waiver, OR provide the information from their biological dad. The step dad is not needed, at all, I believe.</p>
<p>For colleges that use only the FAFSA, only the custodial parent’s income and assets is looked at.</p>
<p>For schools that use the CSS PROFILE, how much a noncustodial parent’s income and assets will be considered will vary. Most PROFILE schools require the noncustodial parent form, but they don’t all look at the income and assets the same.</p>
<p>Some don’t require a noncustodial profile, but they will ask how much the noncustodial parent will contribute.</p>
<p>Some sch
ools will consider the fact that a noncustodial parent is absent and not contributing, but this also varies by school, and they always require some corroborating statements.</p>
<p>These are things to ask each school about. You can get a list of PROFILE schools on the collegeboard site and it will tell you if they use the noncustodial parent form. (to add another bit of confusion - some schools don’t use the PROFILE noncustodial form, but they still have their own form.)</p>
<p>So, if a non-working parent has official custody it doesn’t matter if the other parent is loaded? The student will still have a low EFC (assuming there isn’t tons of child support to be reported.)</p>
<p>This seems unfair because the non-custodial parent could afford tuition.</p>
<p>Couldn’t some people put the custody of the child to the low earning parent just to gain a financial edge? (this assuming everybody gets along)</p>
<p>I’m just saying I always thought some divorce situations might be used to FA advantage. (unless it is a school that counts both parents).</p>
<p>NJfootballmom, not entirely.</p>
<p>For the schools that are FAFSA only, they will consider all child support paid as available and in the facts you presented, there would be extensive child support (based on state guideline minimums,) and any alimony is also factored in at the unearned income rate. Also, divorced parents have a much much lower asset protection and there are other ways that the calculations work against a divorced parent. (also, the custodial parent must have physical custody of the child the majority of the time.)
For Profile schools, the noncustodial parents income and assets are considered available to the student.</p>
<p>(also, if the divorced parents have remarried, the stepparent income is deemed available as well.)</p>
<p>Couldn’t some people put the custody of the child to the low earning parent just to gain a financial edge? (this assuming everybody gets along)</p>
<p>==================</p>
<p>Yes, some do that. And since in many states, Child Support ends when the child graduates, the EFC would be lower for the CP family.</p>
<p>But, at the schools that give the best aid, often NCP info is needed.</p>
<p>That said, in Calif where UCs only use CP info, people game the system ALL THE TIME!</p>
<p>Yes, the system can be gamed. But bear in mind that those schools that give the most generous aid, meeting close to 100% of need, with grants rather than self help, require PROFILE or another app looking more closely at the situation and including both parents unless a waiver is obtained. What you can get via FAFSA is the PELL which is available only up to about $6K, and that income has to be very, very low to be eligible for that. The rest are loans, unless your state has programs that throw in the money. The income for custodial parents does also include child support.</p>
<p>I know someone who did get a nice chunk of change that way, but I would not want to be in her circumstances for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>FAFSA only asks about income from the household of parent the kids are living with. Including any stepparent in same household, if I remember right.</p>
<p>CSS PROFILE asks about income from both parents’ households, including income from stepparents in both households. Colleges expect all parents involved to want to support the kids. If there’s no contact at all or no idea where biological dad is, they’ll definitely need some supporting documents about that. Some colleges will have a waiver form available where the family says one parent has no involvement. These waivers can be difficult, but not impossible, to get approved by a college.</p>
<p>Many colleges have their own version of the required form which is always called the “noncustodial parent waiver” form. Each college’s policy on this subject can be found by searching on their web site for the “noncustodial parent” phrase or call their FA office. The colleges with the deepest pockets for FA will always require this form. If kids are receiving child support, the waiver may be a bit difficult to get approved, since this shows the other parent has income and his/her whereabouts are known.</p>
<p>One college we looked at said they wouldn’t approve a NCP waiver unless the other parent had no contact with the kids for 7 years. Many policies were for no contact for at least 3 years. Some didn’t spell out any specific time period. The NCP waiver usually requires witness statements from a neutral party such as pastor, school counselor, judge, mental health counselor, doctor, etc. If there’s an order of protection or some other legal paper trail involved, that’s very supportive for a NCP waiver. At least one college we looked at required statements from 3 different neutral/community parties, several required it from two parties. For some colleges, it seems like the other parent needs to be in prison, lost, or dead to get a waiver approved. (but not always if the details are compelling enough) It could take awhile to put together a NCP waiver request with the required statements and supporting documents so good to get started on that way before any deadlines. Seriously, get busy with it by the summer before senior year in high school so the waiver request statements & other docs can be as complete as possible if kid wants to apply ED, EA, or through QuestBridge.org before all the fall or Dec 1 deadlines for those.</p>
<p>One way to not jump thru those strict waiver hoops is to apply to colleges that only ask for FAFSA and not the CSS. Be aware that even if a college doesn’t require CSS, they may still have their own FA forms that ask much of the same CSS info about both parents’ households. (Beloit comes to mind) They may also still have their own version of a NCP waiver request form, even if they aren’t a CSS-required college. After going to COllege Board web site as previously mentioned, you can make a list of FAFSA-only schools and start checking their web sites one-by-one to see what their policy about NCP waivers or two-household parents are. </p>
<p>Most (all?) public colleges don’t use CSS or need NCP waivers. Kids looking at any Ivy or top private college can expect to do CSS and provide a NCP waiver form with required support statements and documents. Even so, the NCP waiver may still get denied unless the supporting info for it is well-documented.</p>
<p>But bear in mind that those schools that give the most generous aid, meeting close to 100% of need, with grants rather than self help, require PROFILE or another app looking more closely at the situation and including both parents unless a waiver is obtained.</p>
<p>I wish the UCs required NCP info. The UCs give lots of aid to low FAFSA only EFC students. With UC grants, Cal Grants, and Pell Grants, these kids are getting a lot of free money based ONLY on custodial parent income. And they don’t use CSS at all.</p>
<p>Most Profile colleges do not require the non-custodial parent form to be filled out. Approximately one third of the 350+ Profile colleges do, but most don’t.</p>
<p>Again, as a rule, the more generous colleges do tend request the most information.</p>