Does anyone know how that works? If a student is born in this country, aka an American citizen but the parents are here illegally, can the student still get financial aid?
Are you asking for yourself?
Yes, the fact that a U.S. citizen student’s parents are in the U.S. illegally will not in and of itself keep the student from receiving federal financial aid.
You’re a US citizen. Your parents’ status is not the issue, provided they’ve been paying their taxes.
Im trying to help someone. Not sure why that would be an issue. How do you pay taxes if you are in the country illegally?
Illegal workers can get a Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN or just TIN) by applying to the IRS for one. The TIN is used instead of social security number when they file taxes.
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Posting on the behalf of others is against CC’s TOS. Your friend is more than welcome to establish their own account separate from yours
Yes, the student can apply for federal aid by filing the FAFSA. The parents will have to print out the signature page because they can’t sign the FAFSA online, and their tax return will not be automatically linked. The family may need to opt to file the paper version of the FAFSA which will require more processing time than if it could be done online.
The parents can file US taxes with a federal ITIN. If they have foreign income or assets to report on the FAFSA, they need to convert those figures to US$ at the exchange rate of the day.
The student needs to talk to the financial aid office. I guarantee this has come up before.
Thank you, everyone for your help. This type of question is one that many students like this would never want to ask. Im sure you can understand that this is a sensitive situation.
To be honest the reason Im involved is because I work for free, every year with URM’s to help get them into college. I have been very successful. Every kid has gotten into the college of their choice. But I have never had a student in this predicament, so I figured I would ask. This isn’t a political issue, this a real life issue. So am I asking for myself. as momof2collegekids stated? Yes, I guess I am. I need this information so that I can be more knowledgeable going forward and helpful to my community.
There can be some hurdles. We’ve seen kids here whose parents are either afraid of the FA process or they’ve been working under the table and don’t want to file taxes because they don’t have funds to pay back taxes. And some have been using others SSN numbers to file. It can be a bit messy.
It seems to work out better for those whose parents have ITIN and who’ve been filing/paying.
Thank you.
Note that persons with very low income are often not required to file federal income tax.