Financial Aid and Morals?

I’m just really confused as to why you think your father’s GF should be paying your living expenses. If you don’t want to pay her anything for food/rent/utlities just move out. I don’t think it’s unreseasonable for her to charge an unrelated person to live in her house, doesn’t matter what she expects from her own children you aren’t even a step child or how much money she makes. It’s you dad’s choice not to work to help suport you, you should be greatful for the suport she has given you up to this time.

 This story is missing some facts. If you want to know how much to pay, look at how much it would cost you to live in the real world. You are all living off one wage? Is there some kind of magic money you are not sure of the source of? 

Nope, just the one.

See what others are saying? The grant is for college expenses but you’ve got a freebie on the homefront, not even a parent taking responsibility, just his gf. She’s supporting 5, the male grown up isn’t contributing. At this point, neither are you. That’s where ethics comes in (not morals.) Why not offer $50/mo toward your food (or a lump sum?) Yes, get a job starting now (maybe work study later) and make this small contribution. Talk to FA to try to understand how they expect the refund to be used, but then be respectful of what this woman is doing for you and your Dad.

On the one hand, it’s reasonable that you would pay something for room & board.

On the other hand GF has told Dad it’s OK for him to not work & so he is not helping with his own room & board, nor is he helping support you, his child.

@dkinsey you’re not suddenly going to change your family dynamics. See if you & GF can come to an agreement on a monthly amount. Most parents make this a token amount. I would suggest $50 to $75 per month, but you might set it up to pay in installments when you get your refunds.

You should definitely get a summer job and hopefully a work study job during the school year. Keep as quiet as possible about how much you earn, but it’s possible GF will want a cut of your earnings too, and you might have to increase the monthly amount. It will probably still be cheaper than moving out, but you might start watching postings for rooms to rent in case it comes to that.

It seems to me that you and your dad have been getting a pretty good deal - GF is the primary breadwinner of the household and she has been willing to support both of you in addiiton to herself and her two daughters.

Her relationship with your dad is what it is. If she is happy supporting him, that is fine. That is between them.

However, you are now a grown adult. If she is no longer happy supporting you, that is also fine. If you want to keep living in the household, I think it is fair for her to expect some contribution from you towards room and board.

If you want to move out, you would have those expenses as well.

They have chosen not to get married and that has some impact on your financial aid and on how much support you can reasonably expect from her.

Good luck.

Your Dad and the girlfriend are not married, so her income, which in my world is substantial (close to $100k/year) does not go on the FAFSA but she is supporting you. So the FAFSA doesn’t really reflect your financial situation, but is of course perfectly legal so to speak.

Though your Dad’s girlfriend’s support is not considered relevant to your life by the FAFSA, she is considering it relevant in terms of your refund, and wants a part of it.

This leads me to ask, how much exactly does she pay to support you? Does your Dad have savings that he uses to support you or pay for some things, or is it all on the girlfriend? (The more the GF supports YOU the more misleading the FAFSA and I would double check some line items.)

Okay so the main point I want to make is that I think it is your Dad’s responsibility to pay back or contribute to his girlfriend, not yours. Once your Dad pays the girlfriend, you would have a more typical situation where a parent and child negotiate this kind of thing. This is between you and your Dad, not you and his GF, and as a result it is also between your Dad and GF. It should NOT be between you and the GF. Is that clear?

Other main point, to repeat what others have said, is that this refund is for you in order to be able to pay for college. Us that as a criterion.

Perhaps there is a person in the financial aid office you could talk to.

So…when you did your FAFSA, you put $0 income for your dad? Just be prepared to be selected for verification. You will need to show documentation of how your dad is paying your day to day living expenses with $0 income…and a family of how many??

Sure, what you are doing is not against any guideline, but be prepared for the college to ask, because they probably will.

Calculate your commuting expenses (parking permit or public transportation or whatever), book costs, and personal expenses.

If you are receiving a full Pell, then each semester, how much will you get back? If all…then $2900 or so a semester. Seems like you should be able to give $100 to $150a month for your living expenses and still have some money left. Also, you should have a part time job to help yourself.

Of course your dad’s GF knows you will be getting a Pell refund. Anyone with a $0 income would get the full Pell. She could google and find that out.

How is OP’s FAFSA misleading? His dad has $0 income, and $0 income generates a $0 EFC.

Which line items do you suggest OP check? There are only a few that ask about student untaxed income. Question 45g asks about food and housing allowances, but that refers to the military and clergy. Question 45i asks about untaxed income such as pensions and workers’ comp. And 45j asks about money paid on the student’s behalf for rent and utilities. None of these are relevant to OP. He isn’t in the military or a member of the clergy, he doesn’t appear to have any pensions or workers’ comp benefits, and he doesn’t have any rent or utility bills.

According to kelsmom, money paid on a [student’s behalf](http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1864118-fafsa-question-45j.html) isn’t reported unless the bills are in the student’s name. Unless this has changed, it doesn’t sound like there’s anything for OP to report.

I agree with the many others here who have suggested working out a reasonable deal with your dad’s GF. Its not crazy for her to ask for some contribution and hopefully, you can come to a workable agreement. Good luck.

Let’s stop playing around this issue and let me test for understanding here.

You live with your dad, who got up in his feelings about working at the home depot and after a discussion with his GF, quit his job and has made a conscious decision not to get another job nor does he contribute monetarily to the household (hopefully he cooks, cleans and holds things down on the home front, while she is out earning money).

You D’s GF, provides support for you, your dad (who she is not married to), herself and her two children.

Your mother, who lives with her boyfriend and has also made a conscious decision not to work even to provide the minimal level of support for you her child. Her BF’s money goes to support ** his kids**.

You are attending community college due to the generosity of the tax payers in your state. You are receiving $5960 in pell a year courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers, many who may not even be eligible for their own kids to receive federal aid that they are contributing to.

You are in your feelings because Dad’s GF has asked a fully able-bodied grown man to help contribute to the household, for the food he eats, the bed he sleeps in, the clothes on his back, and even the toothpaste he uses to brush his teeth.

Your rationale is that what she is doing is immoral because **she makes ~8k/month ** and she has a 24 year old daughter who does not work.

Unfortunately, the examples that your parents have provided that you should live free off of others because that is what they are doing.

At the end of the day, she really does not need your Pell money. Perhaps after looking at your dad and her daughter, maybe she wants to teach you responsibility.

Man up!!

Your parents are first in line to pay for your college and take care of you while you are a minor. You have gotten by on other people’s money and feel that because you are on the brink of being hood rich, that you have no responsibility to pull your own weight.

At the end of the day, it is not even really about the PELL money. Even if you get the full allocation of $2890 per semester, where can you -provide food, clothing, shelter, books and the other misc. items you need to attend school for this amount of money. You can’t rent a decent room for under $100/week. If you feel that the Pell money is going to go a long way it won’t. What ever you pay her will be a drop in the bucket if you had to go out and provide by your self.

Get a part time job. You D’s girlfriend does not have a legal, moral or ethical responsibility to **provide anything for you **. Everyday since your dad has not been working that you have been eating, sleeping, having clothes on your back and on occasion a few $$ in your pocket is a gift.

It is not robbery for you to break this cycle and learn how to become a responsible person, who is not simply looking to live off of the generosity of others.

If this makes you unhappy, no one is forcing you to stay. However, I would be willing to be money, that you would not be able to stay with your mother and her BF without contributing to the household (especially if mom’s BF is supporting his kids- something that neither or your parents seem to be doing for you).

Take it as a gift because the one thing that you can do is to learn how to stand on your own two feet and not be totally dependent on others. You are only one disagreement from being on the street. If you think that you and GF gets into a disagreement, that you dad is not going to take her side to keep from messing up his life of Riley situation, then you have another thing coming.

Is there a reason why your dad is not working? Because if I made decent money and told my spouse they can quit their boring job, it’d be with the assumption they’d look for a more interesting one right away. It’s just not right that both you and your dad are expecting your dad’s girlfriend to cover for you. She may be tired of it.
So, strictly speaking, the person who should contribute should be your dad. Talk with him and see if he’s willing to get a part time job to help the family out.
Second, you should probably contribute something - work a job and give part of your earnings to your dad’s girlfriend who has paid more for you than either of your parents. Show some gratefulness and buy her a present with your first paycheck. Or/and buy a week’s worth of groceries and take them in, put them in the cupboards, and wait for her and your dad’s surprise.
If you work a job and give part of your salary to your dad’s girlfriend (perhaps half of your earnings) the rest should go into a savings account. And obviously if you contribute from your wages you can spend your Pell money for books, gas/car repairs or bus pass, supplies, a laptop, your phone plan…

            Also, an "LVN" being called a DON and also earning 8K a month is certainly impressive. Is that before or after tax? 
      Again, I would wonder about other sources of income, that maybe OP isn't  aware of. Dad has no job, 24 yr old DD has no job, seems.............unlikely.  Do these people do anything in their day?

Nope…that’s all the money we got. My stepsister (it’s been so long that we all refer to each other as stepfamily) is either sleeping, drawing, or playing her favorite video game all night (when she has the online membership of course). My dad cooks and tries to keep the house clean. He also takes the kids to school and picks them up (although I know the public bus system and will probably be reliant on it more often after high school).

I think the person you should talk to is your dad. Tell him that you want to make sure you have enough to pay the costs associated with going to school. Ask him if he agrees with his GF that you should be paying some rent to live in her home, and if so, what he feels would be fair. Then ask him to talk with her about this. I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with her asking you to pay something toward the costs of living/eating/showering in her home, but I do think your dad should be brokering this on your behalf with his GF. There is nothing wrong with using your refund to pay rent, since living expenses are part of the student financial aid budget.

One thing I would suggest you point out to your dad when you talk to him about this is that you will have to pay a lot more money when you go from the CC to a 4-year school. If you are able to save some of your current refund, you will be in a better position to afford your tuition down the road. It may or may not make a difference, but it is worth his consideration.

I guess I am rather alone here in my thoughts in this matter. Not a lawyer, and my only qualification is that I watch a lot of Judge Judy when I visit my retired parents.

I think it is rather audacious of the “girlfriend” in this situation to ask money from the son of a person she has allowed to live with her without employment. I also find it rather audacious that neither of the OP’s parents is employed, but hey, someone “picked” them and allows them to live with them in that dependent capacity.

I would make sure you are paying expenses for yourself and “adulting” as much as you can, and be prepared to be asked to move, but I would just make it clear that you are not giving the girlfriend, your mother, or your father, the financial aid money. I say this because the girlfriend feels entitled to a legal stranger’s money. If she wants living expenses, she needs to be hitting up the dad. Did anyone pay child support for OP?

The FA money is for you to pay for your education, so do that. I second a previous poster who suggested that the girlfriend needs an advice columnist to ask why she is supporting able-bodied adults.

^I suggested that OP should use part of his wages from a part-time job to contribute to the household expenses, talk to his dad, and save the Pell grant for educational expenses. (In addition, some money should be placed in savings account in planning for the last 2 years which won’t be at a CC.)

^^
Agreed.

My 15 year old daughter, a high school freshman, starts a part time job tomorrow.

Her 17 year old sister and 19 year old brother have had jobs since the summer after their freshman years.

Get a job.

^^^ sorry, I had to run upstairs and get the troops up for school. I didn’t mean to end so abruptly.

But my point remains. Your dad should be helping to support the household, especially since you mention that a few times a year you’re (meaning dad’s girlfriend) is unable to pay a bill or two. I suspect your stepdad would be equally happy to see your mom get a job and help support herself.

In my world, no one gets a free ride without a reason. So, yeah, moms with young kids stay home because they’re contributing to the family in other ways. But all three of my teens earn their own spending money, their own gas money, the money for the bulk of their wardrobes. Not because we’re hardhearted, but because paying your own way is what adults DO, and they’re becoming adults.

I think it’s time that you (and the adults in your family for that matter) start acting like an adult and start supporting yourself. Consider contributing something towards the household-- either money for “rent” or an occasional stop at the supermarket.

Maybe your parents will learn from your example and start acting like adults too.