<p>Alright, this is my situation. I have been accepted ED to NYU, and am in the process of filling out the FAFSA. I realize that you are supposed to put the parent down whom you live with most, but I have also seen additional guidelines that include who pays the majority of child support etc. My mom is unemployed and remarried to a man who makes a substantial amount of money, but has no plan to financially support my education. I live with my mom and stepfather full time as my dad lives in another state. My dad makes a fair amount of money, about $200k a year, and also has a college fund for me that contains around $110k. He also is still paying child support for me.</p>
<p>So my question is, should I put my mother's and stepfather's information on my FAFSA, or my dad's?</p>
<p>Your custodial parent for purposes of FAFSA is the parent with whom you live most. Since you live full time with your mother, you would use her financial information on FAFSA, along with that of your stepfather’s.</p>
<p>Alright, thank you for clarifying that for me. One more follow-up question then: do I just not include my college fund since it is essentially in my biological father’s possession?</p>
<p>If your father has a 529 account for you, this is a special kind of college fund account that is only reported on FAFSA if it’s owned by you or your custodial parent or stepparent. So your father’s 529 would not be reported.</p>
<p>If your father has invested your college funds in a UGMA or UTMA, and it has your social security number on it, then it would have to be reported on FAFSA. In this case, you might know that it has your SSN on it because you might have reported dividends and/or capital gains on your taxes in the past.</p>
<p>If your father has his own account where he’s set aside money for you, then it’s not reported on FAFSA at all.</p>
<p>Next year you will need to report any money paid by your father on FAFSA as “other support”.</p>
<p>Does NYU have its own financial aid form as well? If so, it might ask you to include the value of <em>all</em> 529 accounts for which you are the beneficiary. In that case you would report your father’s 529, if it exists.</p>
<p>You use your mom and her husband, and if the college fund is in your name you report that too. Honestly, for NYU it probably won’t matter much. It sounds unlikely you’d get any need based aid in either case.</p>
<p>Please, please be careful too. Don’t think you can “forget” to list an asset. Many fin aid departments will ask for tax forms and “other documents” to verify your situation. You can find yourself “uninvited to attend” if they discover you’ve “forgotten” to tell them about assets.</p>
<p>Right, I’m not trying to scoot around any legal matters. I asked my father what kind of account it was and he said it was a “commercial non-qualified account.” I’m not sure which category that falls into under the ones that vballmom describes</p>
<p>“non-qualified” is a term that often describes retirement plans, so perhaps that’s what your father has. You really need to make sure it’s not an account that’s in your name. If you’re the beneficiary of a retirement plan, that’s fine, you wouldn’t report that on FAFSA. As long as it’s not a UGMA, you don’t need to report it.</p>