<p>Filling out the FAFSA. After indicating that my parents earned $0 from working (wages, salaries, tips, etc.) in 2009, the following question is asked:</p>
<p>"Do you want to skip the remaining questions about your and your parents' income and assets?"</p>
<p>My parents do not earn money from working because they are retired/unemployed, but they do still have income and assets. </p>
<p>Given the opportunity, should I skip or answer the remaining questions about my parents' income and assets? If I skip, it will make my parents look extremely poor, earning $0 from working. However, if I answer the remaining questions, my parents' may look rather wealthy because of assets and so forth. (note: income/assets is reported on CSS/Profile, because you are not given the option to decline to enter the information.)</p>
<p>I don’t quite understand. If you’re happy with a FAFSA only schools, you’re better off, but you will still need to report most assets. Profile schools will look at everything. No family lives on air.</p>
<p>Swaggerer, I’m not sure but I think that question is one of the new ones to streamline the FAFSA and make it easier to complete with fewer irrelevant questions. So for a student whose family really has 0 income they don’t have to answer half a dozen other questions that pertain to an income they don’t even have.</p>
<p>It seems like you bring up a situation for which the “skip logic” isn’t properly designed.</p>
<p>If I was you, I’d go ahead and not skip the next questions. Just fill them out as asked. Like you said, that info will be on the Profile anyway, and this way the FAFSA and Profile will be more consistent with each other and less likely to create confusion about your family’s financial circumstances.</p>
<p>I would skip. I think you would be eligible for federal aid, and maybe for state aid if that’s based on the FAFSA in your state. By skipping the asset questions, you’re using the FAFSA as it was designed to be used. Any of your schools that want more information will either use the PROFILE or their own forms to go beyond the FAFSA data.</p>
<p>Your FAFSA might be selected for verification if a school would like you to explain how your parents live on zero income, and at that point you’ll be able to explain how they’re funding their retirement.</p>
<p>I don’t understand this. We have to put the adjusted gross income from husband’s retirement and interest earned on bank account although we had no wages last year.</p>
<p>I meant to say that we had to put the AGI on fafsa. We choose to put the assets and retirement income on our fafsa so when it is verified (which for us has happened almost every year) the college doesn’t even have to bother us for extra info because it is already there.</p>