Does anyone know whether colleges, in looking at FAFSA applications, look more at the Adjusted Gross Income, or the Salaries, Wages, Incomes, etc that parents have to report?
For Americans living overseas like us, the Adjusted Gross Income is lowered dramatically by various exemptions you can take on your income taxes for living overseas, mainly the foreign earned income exclusion, and also the fact that we pay the taxes of the foreign country we live in (Malaysia, in our case).
Our Wages, Salaries etc will look quite high on the FAFSA, but our Adjusted Gross Income quite low.
How do colleges look at the two and which one is generally given more weight?
thanks
Are these schools that will also use CSS Profile? If so, then they probably won’t care about those exemptions that FAFSA allows you to use.
For FAFSA, citizens abroad can look like they have low incomes because of that massive exemption, but CSS schools aren’t going to use that. They’re going to be looking at your high income.
Keep in mind, that aid thru the FAFSA application is very little. Fed aid is very small. If you want institutional aid from the schools, then they’re likely going to be using CSS Profile.
What schools are you looking at?