I do not know if I should include my grandparents in the household size question. It’s my parents my 2 siblings and me so for last year I wrote 5 as household size but this year wrote 7. My grandparents are both listed as dependents on my parents taxes so they would be dependents on fafsa? They have green cards so they can come for however long they want and usually are here for 3-5 months a year and then live in another country for the rest of the time. My parents do help them at times throughout the year. Reading through other discussions it seems that even if they did truly qualify as dependents for FAFSA it would be pretty difficult to prove and would just delay the verification process for a while. They are included on taxes so should they technically be on FAFSA?
Not sure how someone who lives elsewhere 7-9 months a year would be considered residents of your home.
Too late to edit…so here is another part of my response.
Your parents could easily provide more than 1/2 of your grandparents support and yet they still might not be members of your household. We know folks who fully support grandparents who do NOT live with them. The support part is not what determines members of your household. The members of your household are people who actually live there…not visitors…but actually live there.
Hopefully one of the people I tagged will weigh in…but your grandparents don’t live with you most of the time. I’m not sure they can be counted as members of your household.
Is the financial aid office going to ask for proof that my grandparents live physically most of the time with my family? Will there be further verification in order for them to be included?
Actually, the financial aid offices can ask for any information they want if they decide to.
It is very much to your benefit to tell the truth on these applications. It is considered fraud to knowingly get financial aid by providing false info. Fraud is a crime…look it up.
You need to find out if your grandparents who live elsewhere most of the time can be counted as members of your household. If the answer is NO, you need to change the number on your FAFSA to correctly reflect this.
I’m really hoping others will respond…like i said…just providing support is not the acid test for being a household member. The person has to live in the household too. I don’t know if living elsewhere for 7-9 months of the year would make them eligible.
I’ll tag a few others…
@mommdc might know.
But really @BelknapPoint and @kelsmom will have an answer.
From the Federal Student Aid Handbook discussion of who counts in “household size:” Other persons who live with and receive more than half their support
from the student’s parent(s) and will receive more than half support
for the entire award year.
Given that your grandparents do not actually “live with” your parents, I would not consider them to qualify in household size. You cannot honestly say they live with you for the “entire award year” if they only live with you a few months a year.
But they are listed on the tax returns as dependents. Shouldn’t that mean they should be included on FAFSA?
The definition for tax dependency/household member is different than FAFSA. You have to follow the instructions for FAFSA.
No. Dependents on the tax form have absolutely nothing to do with the FAFSA. For example, when parents are divorced, a kid can be living with one parent (who is the parent used on the FAFSA) while the other parent declares the kid on his taxes.
If it’s any consolation, there isn’t much financial aid benefit to having a couple of additional household members. And if your colleges don’t meet full need for all accepted students, there might not be any financial aid gain.
I don’t understand why what the financial aid office might ask for matters. If your grandparents visit for 3-5 months then they don’t live with your family most of the year. If you submitted the FAFSA with a household size of 7 I think you have to correct it and put 5.
And it really won’t make much different. The biggest factors determining your EFC are income and assets of the parents and students. Ask the people on here if it makes a great deal of difference if they have 5 children at home or 7.
Those who said the fact that they are on the tax return is irrelevant are correct. Federal aid rules are separate from IRS rules. The definition of household size that I posted is from the Federal Student Aid Handbook, which is the document that governs aid officers in performing their jobs. These are the regulations aid officers must follow.
And it is true that the additional two family members probably would not have much effect on the EFC. But the important thing is to make sure you only list family members who will live with your parents the entire year and (not or) receive at least half their support from your parents.
If you are selected for verification , every and any thing can be scrutinized. We’ve been selected a number of times, when we were just filling out FAFSA for loan access and it is mind blowing what they request.
FAFSA defines what comprises a household for their purposes and grandparents are not included. This is not info they take from the IRS Form 1040. If you list your grandparents, who are clearly not your siblings or your parents or your children, it could flag your FAFSA application for verification.
As others have noted, including two more dependents is NOT going to make much difference in the EFC, so you are not losing out much at all with grandparents not includable as household members
If all the relevant FAFSA conditions are met, grandparents most certainly could be included as members of the parents’ household.
You seem to be able to know this question. If my Fafsa has already been flagged for verification but then I change the number from 7 to 5 back without including my grandparents will it unflag the application from verification or will it now remain on the verification list? I know even if it gets unflagged there’s still a 1/3 chance of getting selected.
It doesn’t matter if you have been flagged for verification…or not. Your FAFSA must have honest information on it.
@kelsmom cited the criteria for being able to include your grandparents. It doesn’t sound like they qualify.
As @BelknapPoint noted…sometimes grandparents CAN be included as household members…if they meet the FAFSA criteria. That means that they need to live with you…not just visit for several months a year.
Has your FAFSA been selected for verification? Have you received info from the college(s) about what you need to submit to them?
I like that cat. No it hasn’t and you just have to in paper give the financial aid office a tax transcript?
Why didn’t you use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool when you did your FAFSA?
If you need a tax transcript, your parents need to request it NOW. It will take some time for it to come. If you had income in 2018, you will need one as well…if you did not use the IRS DRT.
I don’t know exactly what the financial aid office will need. They will notify me by email it seems when they need it. I had no income so would I just hand them my parents tax transcript? I don’t know how to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool but it probably would’ve been faster since it took me around 3-4 hours to fill out the FAFSA because I didn’t know which lines to look for
Ask the fin aid folks. The custom now is for most people to do the automated DRT, so a copy comes direct from IRS and is official.
You said you did a Fafsa last year. What did you do then?