I’ll be attending Virginia Tech this fall, and my cost of attendance is about 23k (after subtracting grants, scholarships, and family EFC only. No loans.) I also got 7.9k from from federal loans, including sub/non sub loans and perkins loans.
Currently, I have roughly 5k in my stock account (I started out with 2.2k, and I have been day trading for roughly a year), and I’m planning to continue on my stock trading while attending college.
But my question is, let say at the end of next year, my account will be 10k, and the year after that, it will be 17k, will this decrease my grants? should I stop trading stocks? pretty much the reason why I wanted to trade stocks is that I can pay for college myself, and I have heard other people saying that I should stop even if Im making money because this will decrease my grants.
Thanks very much.
You should read more about financial aid and what it is based on. If you can understand some details of the stock market you are capable of understanding the aid, and how income tax works as well–something very important to know. Although you don’t qualify for Pell grant anyway federal aid is based on income and assets of parents and students and private college aid formulas use that too. Student income and assets are assessed at a much higher rate than parent assets for your FAFSA EFC and your family contribution from schools that use more than FAFSA EFC. Do we need to tell you details of those rates that are generally used or have you read about it? Also, in the pinned threads at the top of this forum there is one for links to financial aid info and there is a FAQ on aid.
Just to emphasize, there is nothing about holding or trading stocks in particular, it is just about student income and assets. Also note that there is no money actually available to you to pay anything until you exite the market and cash out. Stocks can be volatile and losses are part of the risk.