FAFSA - Parents never married, estranged from mother

I will be filling out the FAFSA soon. I only plan to present information from myself, my father, and my stepmother. My father never married my mother and she gave up most custody of me and left when I was very young. She lived in Mexico for years (she is a natural American citizen though) and is now married and living in Florida. The only communication I’ve had with her is through Facebook and visiting her once two years ago. I have never lived with her and she has never given any kind of support financial or otherwise. I don’t know how much custody she has over me but I assume it is very little if any at all. I am dependent on my father and stepmother.
Will this be an issue? I have no way of contacting my mother besides Facebook. I know she is unemployed and lives on government benefits, but I don’t know much else.

FAFSA only cares about the custodial parent and they define that as who you lived with the most during the year. Your mother’s info won’t matter at all.

For FAFSA purposes, you would include your dad and stepmom…your mom doesn’t factor into the FAFSA at all.

BUT if you apply to schools that use the CSS Profile and the non-custodial parent form, you probably will need to provide your mom’s and her husband’s info…unless there is info you haven’t provided here.

Thanks for the heads up. I may or may not be applying for CSS, so that info will come in handy. Could you give me an explanation as to why exactly they would need that information? The FAFSA didn’t ask anything regarding my mother.

Thank you. After reading a few horror stories I was pleasantly surprised that my application went so swimmingly.

Two different systems. FAFSA specifically defines your household as the one you live with. Any child support money paid by the other parent is included on the FAFSA.

CSS is used by many schools that provide a lot of their own aid. The CSS just collects information for the schools and the school can consider any sources of income they want to when awarding school money. Some do only consider the family the student resides with but most of them consider any source the student could have from another parent, a grandparent, consider equity in a home. Just because your parents decided your mother wouldn’t contribute to your support or education (or if they decided to allot assets to your father to cover support for year at the time of the divorce) doesn’t mean the college has to agree with that decision.

Since when does Profile or any school that uses Profile ask questions about a grandparent’s income or assets?