If the student becomes a homeowner, will this affect his fafsa?
Parents are divorced but dad wants to help him with a purchase of a home.
Will the student be using the home he owns as his primary residence?
How will the dad be “helping” the student purchase the home?
Is the student considered independent for FAFSA purposes?
If not, which parent is the custodial parent?
The family should run the Net Price Calculators at the various colleges and universities of interest, and see whether they are likely to get any aid at all.
Why wouldn’t the parent help pay for college instead?
If the student is a dependent student for FAFSA and they owned a house, they would have to report it as a student asset, wouldn’t they?
If the parent wants to help with housing costs, maybe they could pay rent for the student and help with food expenses.
I don’t think it matters if a dependent is using the home as a “primary residence”. The home will be an asset to the child. The parents home would be excluded on FAFSA.
To the OP…the child owning a home will not make him “independent” on FAFSA.
I asked these questions to try and get all the relevant information before providing an opinion about any impact on FAFSA. If there are two owned properties involved - one owned by the student and another owned by a reporting parent - it matters which one is being used as the student’s primary residence.
Is there even going to be FA to be affected? That is the real question. Is it a fafsa only school?
The house would be a student asset. As pointed out, it may not make a difference if aid is just loans.