FAFSA gross income vs income earned from wages

<p>I just completed my FAFSA and am a little confused. My family makes very little money. The gross income was around 47,000. However, the income made by working wages was only around 13,000. The rest was taken out of my parents retirement account which made up for the other 34,000. My question is, when they process it will they take into consideration that my family only MADE 13,000 last year, and the rest came from a retirement account? There is no way my family can afford to pay for my college, and my two sisters both received aid from the government for their college. Any answers help, thanks.</p>

<p>The reason that FAFSA has you enter both gross income (AGI) and income from wages is that it calculates the taxes that you pay on wages (FICA and state & Federal income taxes) and gives you a credit for those when it computes your EFC. The FAFSA entry form doesn’t care where the income came from otherwise.</p>

<p>Are your sisters still in college? If so, your EFC is likely to be very low as it essentially would be divided by the number of students in the family.</p>

<p>Best of luck.</p>