Does social security count as income?

Paying for College
1

<p>I know the money my mom earns from work is considered earned income and SSI is unearned income, but the UCF application is asking me for general "family income". If it's just my mom's wages then it's less that 20k a year, with SSI for my family it's 20k-39k. I desperately need financial aid seeing how my SSI ends in 3 months and my mom's in 18 months. </p>

2

<p>Isn’t there a section on the UCF application where you add a note about your unique financial situation?
If not, contact FA office and ask to talk to an FA advisor.</p>

3

<p>Could be, I haven’t completed the app yet so maybe I haven’t gotten that far.</p>

4

<p>The UCF college application asks for income? Don’t they use FAFSA for financial aid and isn’t that not available until 1/1/2015 for the fall 2015-spring 2016 school year? Are you applying for this term or the spring term and filling out the 2014 FAFSA? </p>

5

<p>Yeah, surprised me too. I’m doing the application for fall term of 2015. Senior in hs now.</p>

6

<p>Hoping Swimcatsmom sees this. I think she knows about SSI, especially if it is untaxed. </p>

<p>You can’t complete a FAFSA until January 1 for next year. Your SSI will have ended by then. The 2015-2016 FAFSA will be based on the 2014 tax year.</p>

7

<p>It’s not a FAFSA issue. Untaxes SSI is not included in the FAFSA formula, but the student is not doing FAFSA. The application is asking a general question about family income, just as they ask a bunch of other questions in admissions. UCF is need blind in admissions (though they do not guarantee to meet need), so my guess is that Admissions is just trying to put together some sort of data base on applicants on things like family income, demographics, relationship to the college, level of parents’ education, etc, etc. I would just put the AGI from your parents’ 2013 return. I doubt it’s going anywhere, but if asked you have an official number you used. When you fill out FAFSA, the numbers you use will be form the 2014 return, so they aren’t necessarily going to match anyways. I don’t think it means anything, it’s just informational What a pain that they ask without giving some info on what the income should include.</p>