<p>How much financial aid can I expect? My parents' total yearly income is about 90K. I personally have about 5K in the bank. My grandpa is going to pay about 20K/year.</p>
<p>Will I be getting any financial aid if I attend a pricey school (~60K)? Should I try to hide my grandpa's money at first?</p>
<p>Use the Net Price Calculators on various schools’ websites. Be sure to include your parents’ savings/assets as well.</p>
<p>When you fill out the FAFSA, the day you fill it out, make sure you have your $5K spent on things that you are going ot have to pay, or reimburse your parents for their expenses for you over the year. If they want to open an account in one of their names and ssn joint with you but with themselves as primary to keep that money and anything else they can throw in their as your college fund, that is fine, but anything in your name as of the date you fill out financial aid form officially gets assessed an immediate 20% of the amount towards the EFC, whereas in your parents’ names, assets get a protection allowance and are assessed 5.6% of the amount over that allowance. Big difference.</p>
<p>Since your grandfather has not given you anything YET, it 's not a matter of hiding it. Until you get it, it’s not yours. A lot of talk and hype that sometimes, in fact, often, comes to nothing. If your grandfather gives you the money towards college, it would be reportable in the the year it is given to your. It would be a lot smarter if he lent it to you. Fill out an official loan document complete with interest terms and forgiveness upon graduation, perhaps, and have that on file, and make sure you pay the interest each year to him. This has to be a bonafide loan. Loans do not have to be reported on FAFSA. Just don’t have the money sitting in your account on the day you file it either, Perhaps grandpa should pay it directly to the school.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert here…but any money grandpa pays on your behalf will need to be listed on subsequent FAFSA forms. I’ve heard that a better way…have grandpa gift the money to your parents…and then they pay you college bills.</p>
<p>I think I was too vague in my last sentence. Even if your grandpa pays the school directly, it has to be reported on the FAFSA for that year, and could affect your financial aid. So even if he does give it to the school directly, some loan documentation is needed. I just added that line so that the money doesn’t go to you and sit in your account leading to issues in reporting because any assets in your accounts and your parents the day you fill out the FAFSA has to be reported. But paying it directly to the school still is giving it to you, unless you borrow it from him and carefully document it as such.</p>
<p>Grandpa can also give the money to your parents as gifts to them do not get reported on FAFSA, but if it is sitting in the accounts as assets the day of the FAFSA filing, it does have to be reported as assets as you are not permitted to earmark funds. What’s there is counted. But if grandpa pays it directly to the school, it is a gift to you, and you have to so report it.</p>
<p>To maximize the financial aid you might receive from a college/university, you must minimize what you have to declare on your FAFSA/CSS and do it legally. I would try and find a way not to declare your grandfather’s gift or it will only lower what you might get in a financial aid package. </p>
<p>With regard to how you might get in financial aid depends on a number of factors starting with your EFC, then the size of the institution’s endowment, how good a student you are, etc.</p>