HELP ASAP! CONFUSION FAFSA/CSS Profile (Divorce, Remarried, Info issue, flag?)

Paying for College
1

Hello all, I need your help!

I’m a high school senior applying to “CSS-Profile required” colleges, and I came across quite the jiffy.

My parents are divorced, and I live primarily with my mother (my “custodial parent” and primary caretaker). My mother is now married to another man (not my biological father), and my father is still single. My stepdad is not going to be contributing to my college, and is not contributing to paying for food, house, etc. All their money is separate.

I already did my FAFSA, and my counselor told me if your parents are divorced you put the information of your primary caretaker, (aka my mom) and so I did. I didn’t really report anything on my stepdad or my dad, like told.

Recently I received emails from colleges to fill out the CSS Profile to apply for “priority financial aid”. So I start doing so, but after putting my biological parents as “DIVORCED” it states to put the current marital status of my custodial parent (my mom) as either Divorced, Remarried, Married, and some other options (that don’t apply to me so I won’t say).

Which do I put?

I’m super worried that if I put it as “Remarried” or “Married” (idk the diff) and then proceed to put info on my stepdad, that I’ll be flagged since I (like my counselor said) didn’t say anything about my stepdad on the FAFSA. But then i don’t want to lie. My counselor said that I did the FAFSA correctly, and to simply put info on my stepdad on the Profile.

If i keep my FAFSA like this, will i be flagged?

Thinking worst-case-scenario, if my financial app is flagged, can my colleges that use FAFSA-only (not Profile colleges) be jeopardized in some way too?

Should I just wait to submit my CSS-Profile (Because if I don’t get into any of the schools that require Profile this doesn’t matter anyway right?)

PLEASE all help is appreciated, TY!

2

Your mom is remarried.

Your counselor is WRONG. If your mom and stepdad are married and not separated, his information MUST go on FAFSA and Profile. It doesn’t matter if they keep their finances separated or whether he’s paying for your college or not.

3

You must correct your FAFSA to include your stepfather’s information, because your custodial parent ( your mom is remarried). Also remember that if your mom is receiving any child support that that must also be entered on the FAFSA.

For the CSS profile you must include the income and assets of your mom and your stepdad. If the school requires the non custodial profile, you must have your dad fill that out.

Before any financial aid is awarded, everything that you put on the forms will have to be verified. For the FAFSA, you must either use the IRS data retrieval tool or get a transcript from the IRS. For the Profile, the school will ask for additional information , including copies of your taxes.

If your information is incomplete, then you will not receive any financial aid. If your willfully misrepresent your situation, you can be criminally prosecuted, you will have to repay any aid that you received using fraudulent information, you probably won’t receive any aid in the future and your admission will most likely be rescinded. So fix it!!

4

It doesn’t matter if your mom’s current husband and her ex-husband refuse to contribute toward the cost of your college education; if schools you are applying to require one or both of the men’s income and other financial information, you must provide it if you wanted to be considered for financial aid.

5

None of this matters. It also doesn’t matter if they filed their taxes separately. Fact is…you are required to list your step father’s income and assets on the financial,aid forms along with your mother.

Your counselor is WRONG. If you live with your mom, and your mom is remarried…the info from both your mom and step,dad is REQUIRED on both the fafsa and Profile forms.

You put REMARRIED…because that is the honest answer and your mom IS married!

Remarried means she is married again. Married means she is married to the first husband.

For,the Profile,if married, they would expect info from both mom and bio dad and they would not seek non-custodial parent info.

For remarried, this flags the need to send the non-custodial Profile to the other parent. That is YOUR case.

Once more…your counselor was WRONG about the FAFSA…stepdad must be included.

Yes. You need to amend the FAFSA TODAY…like right now…and include the income and assets from both your mom and stepdad.

Look up,the word FRAUD in a dictionary. If you submit this fafsa with only your mom’s info when in fact she is married…you have completed the fafsa incorrectly. If you get aid by dishonestly completing the fafsa, this is considered FRAUD. That is a crime.

Wait for what? You need to amend the FAFSA immediately. You need to include your step dad on it.

You need to include your step dad on the Profile your mom completes. Did you also know there is a non-custodial parent Profile that might be required by some of your colleges? Your bio dad will need to complete THAT.

All financials for this fafsa and Profile are from the 2015 tax year…so because your mom is married NOW, her husband’s income from that tax year is included.

How did your mom file her taxes?clearly, she is married…so her choices would be married filing jointly, and married filing separately.

Getting financial aid with dishonest information submitted is considered fraud. You can be fined, jailed, and lose your offer of admission.

Get that FAFSA changed today. Add your stepdad.

Then do the Profile including your stepdad and mom. Your bio dad will be sent info to complete the non-custodial form.

6

I just want to say I don’t think the GC was wrong but not complete/clear. When parents are divorced you use the income of the parent you live with the most. That would be the mom. The income for the mom on her taxes will include that of the step dad. And it will be EASILY found out by the schools that the numbers don’t match when the school verifies the FAFSA data that the step dad’s income was not included.

7

Didn’t your parent (mother) fill out the parent section of the FAFSA? The instructions are pretty clear to include her income, and her spouse’s income, assets, child support paid or received. When you/Mother redo the FAFSA, remember that step father is a member of the household too.

You need to re-evaluate the schools you applied to taking your stepfather’s income into consideration. It will change your EFC for FAFSA only schools, and probably at CSS schools too.

8

@twoinanddone

If the mother has remarried…it is HIGHLY likely that the stepfather’s income and assets, and the child support payments…will,affect aid at Profile schools as well.

Never mind that fraud will the same regardless of the school if this student receives aid using dishonest entries on the forms.

9

Carefully re-read the FAFSA instructions yourself and get the numbers corrected. Be honest and you won’t have a problem.

Last year when filling out financial aid forms for my daughter, I entered some incorrect information on the FAFSA–not deliberately, I just included some numbers on the wrong line of the form. I realized this when a school contacted us to ask why numbers on the FAFSA and CSS didn’t match. I researched it, figured it out, and sent the correct information. Since you already know there is a problem, you can fix it now.

You do need to include your stepdad’s financial information as requested by the forms. CSS will also want your dad’s information. Work with your parents to get this fixed ASAP, and you won’t have a legal problem. The schools will calculate financial aid based on the correct information and you will need to work with those results to finance your education.

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My parents are divorced, and I live primarily with my mother (my “custodial parent” and primary caretaker). My mother is now married to another man (not my biological father), and my father is still single. My stepdad is not going to be contributing to my college, and is not contributing to paying for food, house, etc. All their money is separate.


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I wish the OP would come back.

Yes, the stepdad’s info must be included on both FAFSA and CSS Profile (if CSS is req’d).

I think the OP thinks that because mom and hubby keep finances separate that his info isn’t used. Not true. While it’s not relevant to FA, it’s hard to believe that the stepdad isn’t contributing to the household, at least paying for his own share of expenses.

11

I said probably because we don’t know what level of income we are talking about. If mother and stepfather together make $60-75k, that would take them out of Pell range but may not take them out of 100% meets needs school range. The NPC could make enough to take them out of private college range, or he could make nothing.

Still needs to be corrected.

12

UPDATE: THANKS ALL FIXED!