Hello, I’m new here and I just made an account because I’m having financial aid trouble and I haven’t been able to find the answer.
My husband and I just got married and we’re both students who are under 24. We were already engaged but we got married in the middle of the semester instead of over the summer so we could file as independents on the FAFSA. We talked to the financial aid office a few times before filing, because since we married in February we didn’t file our taxes jointly (because we would have had to be married before December 31st of 2015 to do so). We confirmed that we use our separately filed taxes, but put our joint income on the FAFSA and because we put down the month we married on our forms it would get sorted out.
The issue is they’ve sent us both various verification forms, asking each of us to fill out a low or zero income student letter, and for the tax transcript for my parents. Only me though, not my husband.
First, the major issue being my parents’ tax information. I’ve spent 3 years at a community college working two jobs to save for tuition to transfer - in the past I’ve had to file the FAFSA under my step-father’s income which was too high for aid, but he wasn’t helping me financially at all. My parents were evicted from their house and for a couple years I lived with my uncle, paying my own expenses other than rent, and my grandmother paid my car insurance. If I give them my parents’ tax information, I’ll be disqualified for aid again, but based on the information I’ve seen from the FAFSA because we applied as independent students, I shouldn’t have to give this information. I rechecked my FAFSA to see that I was submitted as an independent student, and I was. The other thing that’s incredibly odd is I made twice as much as my husband this year, and they’re asking for verification of my parents tax returns, but not his.
The low/zero income form is less of a big deal, but we are confused, because we confirmed that our income is high enough that we shouldn’t have to fill that out. We made about 16-17 thousand combined, but part of Ben’s income was untaxed money he made working at the school (it’s kind of weird, he was paid with “scholarship” money so it wasn’t taxed), so our income without that money was around 14-15 thousand. From our understanding, this zero/low income form was based on these values http://www.finaid.org/educators/pj/lowincome.phtml, and we shouldn’t have gotten this form unless we paid less than 9,700. We CAN fill out this form outlining how we paid for all of our expenses, but calculating what we spent all throughout this last year would be hell. We’re somewhat confused because our rent and bills combined are 800 a month, and we’ve only lived in this apartment since august, so those things have been 4,000. However, even if we had lived here for the past 12 months, we could have afforded it. What are they basing the low/zero income form off of?
I sent an email and no one has replied yet, and throughout the whole process we’ve been talking to financial aid and getting conflicting information or not being told certain bits of information at all. I’m not really sure what to do or what Financial Aid can do, can they request my parents’ information now that we are filing as independent? It’s bizarre to me because I’ve been living independently of my parents for the past few years, but my financial/living situation didn’t change that I was considered a dependent for financial aid, but now that I’m an independent I have to prove that I’m not actually financially dependent. I have a lot of friends who are 24, 25 or 26 that haven’t had an issue with financial aid that made less than I did, and they live at home and that wasn’t questioned.
Any advice?