I realise I won’t be filing my FAFSA until October of this year, but I’d still like the answer to all of the questions I have early on so that I know what I’m getting myself into when it comes time to apply to colleges and file for financial aid. So, here goes.
Currently, my parents are not my legal guardians. My grandparents are my legal guardians. This was a voluntary guardianship, as there was no court order to appoint them as my guardians. That said, however, there is a written document of agreement/guardianship which has been signed by my parents and grandparents and has been notarised, making it legally binding. With all of that said, I’d like to know…
Am I considered an independent or dependent student for FAFSA-filing purposes?
Whose income, if any, would I report on the financial aid documents?
Any and all help in the matter is appreciated, and I thank you in advance!
Since this wasn’t a court-ordered guardianship, you are not independent…you are dependent and your parents info will be used on FAFSA.
Obviously, if all it took was for parents to assign guardianship to someone else, have it notorized, and kids would be independent for aid purposes, a gazillion parents would do that to get aid for their kids.
I realise that and I thought that’s what the answer would be, but I wanted to be certain, because I was getting conflicting information from lots of different places. Thank you!
Getting a document notarized doesn’t make it legally binding. The purpose of having a notary sign a document is to legally establish that the person whose signature is attested to by the notary is really who they say they are.
If you are still under 18, you can try to make the arrangement formal, through a court, this year. You might have to be emancipated or terminate your pare ts’ rights (not easy unless they consent). It is not the right choice for a lot of families, but look into it if you think it might be right for you.
The FAFSA says that your custodial parent is the one that you lived with for the majority of the year (6 months and a day). Do you live with your parents or your grandparents?
If you live with your grandparents, I would talk to a financial aid officer about how to file the FAFSA correctly. This may be complicated by what sounds like an irregular attempt to establish guardianship. If you never went to family court, that paper may not count for anything at all. If you are under 18, and you do not want your parents to have authority to make decisions on your behalf, you should figure this out before it actually becomes a legal issue (i.e. some sort of disagreement between the parents and grandparents actually occurs).
Thank you to all who have helped. I needed only confirm that I would, in fact, be considered a dependent and use my parents’ information to file for financial aid. Because it’s a voluntary guardianship and it would be to my benefit not to file a formal arrangement with the courts, I think we’ll not consider those options. Again, thank you.
I see from your other thread you are looking at PSU. Make sure you run the Net Price Calculator on their web site. It’s an expensive school, even for in-state students. The most you can get through federal aid is $5800 Pell Grant and a $5500 loan.
And you might get a PHEAA grant of up to about $4,000
PSU main costs about $30k instate, most $0 EFC students get about $10k max in Pell and PHEAA grant.
Then the student loan is $5,500, so $15k more to come up with.
Submit FAFSA early, 2015 tax returns should hopefully be completed at that time.
You and one parent need to sign up for a FSA ID (username and password for signing FAFSA), do that this summer ahead of time since there is cross checking with SSA and it might take a while.