<p>Hello. Well, as I begin my boarding school search, my mom brought up a very good point. We might not qualify for FA. I am a domestic student, but only one of my parents work. Do you think that I might not get FA for this reason? I'm getting worried. Boarding school is my dream, but if I don't get FA I can't go. I checked all the FA policies of the schools I'm going to apply to, and most, if not all, say both parents must be employed. Well that faces a big problem. Should I give up and move on? Or should I see what happens?</p>
<p>It depends. If your mother doesn’t work because she is taking care of an infirm parent or homeschooling her children or has preschool age children, many schools will consider just your dad’s income. Otherwise, the schools will generally assign to her an income they think she could be making. That wouldn’t necessarily be equal to your father’s income since I don’t think the schools expect the parents to be making the same amount (in our family, for example, I work part-time because I have a younger child at home, and that hasn’t seemed to hurt us for FA)</p>
<p>You could run the financial aid calculator with an extra hypothetical income and see what happens.</p>
<p>Thank you classicalmama. I suppose I’ll just go for it. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Go to either Exeter’s or SPS FA calculator (which use HHI) to see if you might qualify.</p>
<p>If only one parent works and they make $75k…that’s a big difference from one parent making $500k. And I think classical mama is correct in that they assign some salary equivalent to the non-working parent in the real SSS calculation.</p>