<p>We are just finishing our taxes so that we can fill out the FAFSA. Our DS will be an entering Freshman this fall at our state university. Here is my question. We have a 22 year old daughter who is still living at home. She got her BA in teaching last year and she got her first teaching job 2010-2011 and is living at home to save money to buy a condo. We supported her all thru 2010 till she got her job in Sept 2010. Here is my question - is there any advantage to us for this year's FAFSA for us to claim her as a dependent? She will get more money back if she claims herself, but I am not sure if we will hurt our chances of having a "better" FAFSA if we don't claim her. I hope this makes sense. I think the FAFSA may care about how many dependents that the parents have. On the other hand by next year she should be out on her own so even if it is helpful we will only be able to claim her as a dependent for this first year of our son's FAFSA. Though he is trying to get merit scholarships for the year and some of them are only for one year... Anyway any advice would be super helpful. We want to make sure we are optimizing our son's chances at financial aid. (In case you are wondering our daughter did two years of comm college and we just paid her tuition at AZ state as she commuted from home). Our son is a straight A student accepted into the Barrett Honor College and will be "going" away to college so will be more expensive than our daughter was. We never had to do a FAFSA for our daughter so this is our first time out... Thanks!!</p>
<p>You do NOT need to claim her as a dependent on your taxes in order to count her as a member of your household for FAFSA purposes - the two have nothing to do with each other. Read the FAFSA instructions for number in household to determine whether you can include her or not.</p>
<p>Before you get excited about claiming your D to get a lower EFC, be aware that schools like ASU do not have much “free aid” to give and if your EFC is higher than the Pell amounts (around 4500), it’s doubtful that you’ll get any free aid no matter if you claim your D or not. </p>
<p>For instance…if your EFC without your D is - say - 9,000 and with your D is - say 7,000, you may not see any difference in aid.</p>
<p>Schools like ASU do NOT meet need.</p>
<p>It makes no difference on FAFSA whether you claim her s a dependent on your taxes or not.</p>
<p>It will not help on FAFSA whether you claim her or not, but if you are eligible to claim her it will probably make a big difference as to what you get back. If I were you, I’d figure it both ways. If you get more by claiming her, assuming you are eligible, than she would be, I’d claim her, get my refund and give her what she would have gotten</p>
<p>Thanks - you guys are awesome! Mom2collegekids - he is also applying for private scholarships and some of them said that if he makes semifinalist they will want his FAFSA so I am hoping that he gets that far with some of those also. So even if ASU doesn’t help maybe a scholarship might come thru. He is trying some National and local ones - and yes we know the national ones are a long shot! But what the heck he is trying anyway. Thank you again for all of your replies. Now we know how to at least finish off the taxes… then move on to the FAFSA!</p>