<p>*Schools can and will ask for documentation if it doesn’t look like an “independent” student has the income to support themselves. *</p>
<p>I get that, but the FA office can’t declare such married people as “dependent” and no longer “independent”. If that were true then adults on welfare or whatever couldn’t be “independent” for FAFSA purposes.</p>
<p>I do have to take issue with demanding mortgage and other information from others living in the same house. If I were renting a room from a close friend, it wouldn’t be right for the FA office to demand to see her and her H’s mortgage info.</p>
<p>The reality a young married couple WILL be expected to have some way to support their expenses AND will be asked to show it if they put they have no income. By being married, they are considered independent for FAFSA purposes BUT that does NOT mean their financial aid will exceed what that would have gotten as dependent students. Any and all expenses paid ON THEIR BEHALF (that would include living expenses and college expenses) will be required to be listed on THEIR FAFSA forms.</p>
<p>It is not a matter of them being considered dependent or independent. It is a matter of the monies being paid on their behalf to support them would be considered income. Because they are younger and have more years toward retirement, they will have less of a protected income. They may both still not be eligible for full pell.</p>
<p>When you offset the things that they will be giving up; health insurance for one because they would no longer be carried on their parents insurance and the cost they would have to pay to be covered by the university, that is going to be a about 2k to 3k, which they will probably have to borrow money to pay for. If the cost of them going to college is not fully covered by their pell monies, they are going to have to borrow to pay the balance of tuition, fees, books, transportation. In the long run, they would be gaining so little, that it really would not be worth the trade-off.</p>
<p>You have to remember that financial aid officers have a job to do.</p>
<p>The cost of a school being out of compliance is big (the school can be charged up to $1 million per student for each infraction). This is why some schools are really nit picky about requesting information. Because public universities really have no institutional funds, they would be hurt the most for a student being out of compliance.</p>
<p>They wouldn’t lose their health insurance if each is currently covered by their own parents’ plans.</p>
<p>*Who’s covered: The law takes effect for insurance plans that already cover dependents, starting on or after Sept. 23, 2010.</p>
<p>Those plans will cover policyholders’ children until age 26 – even if those adult children no longer attend college, don’t live with their parents and aren’t dependents on a tax return.
Finally! We can get health insurance</p>
<p>Under-26 children who were previously dropped from dependent coverage will also be able to re-enroll as long as they don’t have access to an employer-sponsored plan.</p>
<p>If an adult child has access to another employer-sponsored health plan, insurers can generally refuse coverage, but only until 2014.</p>
<p>Also, the re-enrollment option only applies to plans that already offer dependent coverage. If a company has such a plan, it must inform employees their children, who may have aged out of the plan, will be eligible again starting Jan. 1, 2011.</p>
<p>**The policy applies to married and unmarried children, **but does not extend to their spouses or children.*</p>
<p>If their parents don’t contribute for college, and they pay their parents minimum rent, they could earn about $6k total over the summer ($3k each), still have a 0 EFC, get full Pell each, borrow $5500 each, and maybe get $2500 each for work study.</p>
<p>If they commute to a local public that has low tuition, they could do it. They’d have about $33k to cover their expenses…All without parents paying.</p>
<p>Yes, you can re-enroll your children on your company’s health insurance but I can tell you first hand that it is not cheap. The cost for medical alone is ~$550 a month for my law school student (even though she has benefits through her school)for the same benefits she had when she was my unmarried, in undergrad dependent but paying about 4Xs as much because she no longer met the requirement of “dependent”. </p>
<p>And this plan is less expensive than the plan I had in corporate life. People who work for small companies or self insured will probably pay more to carry their formerly dependent children.</p>
<p>So the $5000 in health insurance essentially wipes out any other benefits.</p>
<p>For us to re-enroll our S (who is 23 years old), all we had to do was write a letter to the insurer, signed by the primary insured (H). We were already on the family plan & there was no added cost or premium increase. We also had to request that he be un-enrolled in the insurance plan we signed him up for in the interim (the time after his U policy ended & our request to add him is effective on 1/1/2011). The plan we had him enrolled in during the gap was just under $300/month with a significant deductible. He has not made any claims under it but we didn’t want any gaps in his coverage, “just in case.”</p>