On the FAFSA question: Money received, or paid on your behalf (e.g., bills), not reported elsewhere on this form. This includes money that you received from a parent or other person whose financial information is not reported on this form and that is not part of a legal child support agreement…
Does that include money received as gifts for graduation?
I don’t believe gifts are listed. Now…if someone pays bills for your kid as a gift, that’s another story, because that is money paid on their behalf.
A gift to the student is money received. At what amount the student has an ethical and legal duty to report becomes the question. What if a grandparent gives the student $10k as a gift and says, “I hope you spend this on college.” Should that be reported on FAFSA question 44.i. as money received?
I would think that money is sitting in a bank account somewhere, so it would be reported elsewhere on the fafsa?
Not necessarily. Using my hypothetical above, the student who was gifted $10k by a grandparent who was hoping it would be used for college could have turned around a week after the gift was made and used the money to buy a car. It would not then be on hand when FAFSA is completed, so the now spent gift money is not still around to be reported as an asset. It’s quite common for the same dollar to be reported on FAFSA as both income (taxed or otherwise) and an asset.
Ah. Got it. Thanks for explaining.
So if my child say, received about $700 in money for graduation from friends and family to do as they please, and they put it in their bank to use for ‘spending money’ at college (Starbucks, non-essential items, movies, makeup etc, Christmas gifts), should they list that on that question?
Or if Grandma gave them $50 for Christmas?
Say they received $700 but only have $500 left in their bank account?
I will refer you back to what I wrote in an earlier post:
Any gift money IN your child’s account on the day the financial aid forms are filed must be reported as an asset.