<p>I have a progressive disease and have substantial medical expenses. What percentage of my income is considered excessive? I assume the lower one's income the lower the percentage?</p>
<p>If you are referring to professional judgement for your FA it would depend on the school. The FA person at the school will make the adjustment.</p>
<p>Also, these would have to be unreimbursed medical expenses. In other words, anything covered by any insurance or by any other means other than you would not be considered at all.</p>
<p>Also, I believe schools will only look at medical expenses you have already incurred…not potential ones for the future.</p>
<p>In any event…you need to have firm documentation of the medical expenses AND that they were not covered by insurance AND that you paid these costs. You would contact the college and ask how they deal with “special circumstances considerations”. Some schools will do this and some won’t…it’s completely up to each school whether they will consider these or not. IF the school does, you need to find out that school’s process for considering your special circumstances…they will be able to tell you…and it will likely vary by school.</p>
<p>For FAFSA there is an income protection allowance for parents. I believe about 11% of that income protection allowance is designated for medical expenses (love to know how they come up with these figures - our medical insurance alone far exceeds that figure!). Unreimbursed medical expenses in excess of that figure may be considered in a professional judgement adjustment. So if your family size gives an income protection of say $25,000, the part of that related to medical expenses is $2750. </p>
<p>We did one one year. The way it worked was that we provided a stack of documents to the school supporting all the medical expenses. Once they approved the PJ, they went in and reduced the income on our FAFSA by the amount approved. FAFSA then calculated a new EFC based on the reduced income.</p>
<p>Most schools that use the CSS Profile and Institutional Method for calculating EFC will deduct unreimbursed medical expenses in excess of 3.5% of income. You need to check with each individual school, though, to confirm this.</p>
<p>swimcatmom- can you explain what you mean by income protection? How/can one find out what theirs would be?</p>
<p>The FAFSA formula has a certain amount of income protection built into it. For parents, the amount is based on the number in the family and the number in college. If you google 2011-2012 EFC formula you should find a link to the current EFC formula. The income and asset protection tables included there (several pages in as far as I recall).</p>
<p>The percentages allocated to individual expenses can be found on the finaid.com website. Not sure how up to date they are, but gives you a general idea. (and when I say up to date, I don’t mean realistic or anything like real life, just up to date in that that is what the govt apparently thinks people need for these expenses).</p>