Divorced parents with extreme salary differences

Re: Stepdad-- OK, that makes sense. Check out Vanderbilt. Someone said they do not use the NCP when determining aid.

If your mom divorces her spouse, and she has money to “use as she wishes” where will that money come from? She will have to report it on your FAFSA.

Stop trying to figure out a way to game the system. Spend your next couple of years looking for affordable options.

On those merit and aid awards, I know the PSAT/NMSQT is really good. Are there other specific programs worth a try?

Try to get the best grades, and hardest HS classes you can.
Look to schools where you can get a lot of merit.
Ask your parents if they can put the money they would have spent but don’t have to because of merit in a 529 that you can use for law school.
Look at Yale as a goal for law school, not for undergrad.

You and each of your parents can run their sets of the financials for the FAFSA through the current formula: http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/090214EFCFormulaGuide1516.pdf That will let each of them know what your EFC would be if you were going to be a student this fall. The formula changes a bit every year, so they need to treat this information as a guideline.

Legal custody, and custody for the FAFSA are two different things. For the FAFSA if you divide your time exactly between the two households, the parent who contributes the most to your costs is your custodial parent. So under the current scenario, your mom and step dad would be considered custodial because of their larger combined income. If you spend more time with one parent than the other, the parent you spend the most time with is custodial for the FAFSA. That means that if you can determine now that your Dad’s financial situation would guarantee you a lower EFC, then you and your parents can plan your life so that from January 1 of your Junior year through December 31 of your senior year (the 12 months on which your college freshman year FAFSA will be based) you spend more time living with your dad than with your mom. This can be just one night more.

You and your parents are smart to be thinking about this now. Together, you have time to come up with a good plan for paying for your education.

Look here for merit aid. Also get summer jobs and save as much as possible.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest

For custodial parent determination, it’s not the calendar year preceding the year fafsa is filed, it’s the 12 months preceding the day you file fafsa.

Just one thing…having your dad as your custodial parent on the FAFSA is only going to help determine federally funded need based aid. With an income of $60,000, you will not be eligible for a Pell Grant anyway in all likelihood.

And at those other schools, mom and step dad are going to need to provide their financials anyway. They base their need based institutional aid on the Profile information…all of it.

For public schools, only your custodial parent’s household income and assets are considered. For many private schools (there are some exceptions), they will consider both parents’ AND stepparents’ incomes.

You say you spend equal time with both parents. However, colleges and the federal government will want to know which one you actually live with MORE according to the number of nights you sleep in each house, even if it’s only one night per year difference. For this reason, you should arrange your schedule to stay at least slightly more often with the lower income parent in the year before they file their FAFSA (and/or CSS Profile) forms. From what you wrote I understand this to be your dad; it sounds like if your primary residence were to be with your mom and stepfather, they are almost certain to find the high household income means you have no financial need at all.

You say your mom’s high income is actually your stepfather’s; does your mother work or have earned income of her own?

The top private schools that I know of that provide at least some exceptions to the standard of considering both parents’ AND both stepparents’ incomes are Vanderbilt, Bucknell, Chicago, and Princeton. (I have also heard that Duke makes exceptions, but I don’t know their rules on the matter.)

In all cases, make sure they understand that when they fill out the forms, they are NOT obligating themselves to actually pay anything, and the schools should NOT disclose any of a parent’s information to the other parent.

Does your stepfather have any children? Has he already been through the money wringer?

@annoyingdad - Thanks for catching my error on the FAFSA date thing! I was struggling with the best way to express the idea, and missed the simplest version.

Well, it sounds like you already have part of the lawyer thing down pat.


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Oops, I meant 7 years. I plan on becoming a lawyer.

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Well, the law school part will be on you. Parents don’t usually pay for that.

If your mom divorces her H, she would lose his income. She wouldn’t walk away with half of his income.

I would be REALLY concerned about your dad’s remarriage. He may not be able to pay out $10k per year once his family quickly expands. Wife #2 may not agree with $1000 a month going to your education when the household would suffer.

Before your dad marries this lady, hopefully he will make the agreement to pay $10k clear to her.

At the top schools that you want, you will not get any aid because of your mom’s household income.

Your dad’s income will go up, and the 2 extra kids won’t likely make a difference in your EFC since income is going up.

20K might cover some public universities if you stay in-state. The work “think” is dangerous. Look up cost of attendance at the schools you are considering right now.

Hash, You’re Hilarious!

So what does post 33 mean? You are getting some good advice here…and you post that?

Alfonzo- you need to take a step back.

There are colleges which will consider all four incomes (bio parents plus the steps) in awarding aid. There are colleges which will consider home equity and those that won’t. There are some that will come up with enough aid for you to attend- but that aid will be in the form of loans which your parents may be unwilling to consider. And then there are lots of colleges which don’t guarantee to meet your need at all- they will hand you a price tag and whether you can afford it, or how you plan to afford it, isn’t their problem.

You need to make yourself a chart and plot out a bunch of different colleges and show annual cost of attendance, what commitment your parents have made to paying, and then what that gap is. Sometimes you can fill that gap with merit aid. At the most generous schools, assuming you can deal with mom and stepdad’s income, you may be eligible for need based aid based on your dad’s income alone (assuming that there aren’t significant assets in the mix). Etc.

But don’t go falling in love with any options until you see the numbers. Depending on your dad’s assets, even if you live with him 100% of the time, some colleges will want the non-custodial parents income (and the spouses) on that form. So deciding what your dream school is before you’ve got a realistic financing plan (and before you decide who you’re moving in with to maximize your aid) is putting the cart before the horse.

Thank you all once again for your help. I will definitely ask my parents about their assets and do some more research on the policies at UT. You guys brought up several points which I would have never thought about. I am astounded by all the time and effort the people on here have spent to help me, I am extremely greatful. I will work on getting involved in programs that offer academic aid. Hopefully, I can find a way to pay for a private university, although I know have had a bit of a reality check on the difficulty of doing so. Thanks for checking out my stats, my situation and informing me of how much these policies vary. I might try and spend a little more time with my dad in order to increase my aid as well. And a special thanks for telling me about the schools that make some exceptions.

Right now, cost of attendance for UT is $25-29,000 per year, in-state. (Private colleges are around 65,000 a year).
Can you try to have your mother/mother’s spouse commit to paying the amount of half of UT’s cost-of attendance at the moment you apply, at least?
You’ll be full-pay at all the colleges you mentioned above. So, forget about them.
Your choices are
1° get high test scores and go to a NMF scholarship college or where you can get a full-tuition scholarship for scores
or
2° stay in-state and go to UT - try to get into one of the Honors’ Colleges to have a more personalized education.