http://www.jmu.edu/financialaid/calculators/undergraduate.shtml#OutputTop
According to James Madison University, I’ll get 11k in grants per year if my EFC is 0 (which it is). However, I heard grants can’t exceed 5-6k/year. Am I missing something?
What grants can’t exceed $5000-$6000 a year? With an EFC of $0 you would,get the full Pell Grant of $5900…plus you could get grants from the college…or state (if there are grants for low income students).
Are you instate? Does your state give grants as well?
It appears that if you’re instate, you get a combo of grants (fed, state?, institutional). However, your bigger problem is that you still have a highish net cost. How will that get paid? The NPC is suggesting “additional loans”…that would be parent plus loans and many parents won’t do that.
I think my net cost will be somewhere between 9-12k/year. My parents are giving me 50k in total for college so I should be fine…hopefully.
Make sure. With a $0 EFC, your parents income is LOW. Do they have that $50,000 in a 529 or other college savings account? Are you sure they will be able to give you $12,500 a year?
yeah. They bought this little land for like 10k 3 decades ago and just sold it for 200k. That’s how I’ll afford college because their income is like 25k/year.
Ah. So do,you qualify for,the simplified needs test…for FAFSA purposes? If so, your family assets would not be counted.
Good luck to you. I hope the finances work out.
Thank you!
Won’t they have a large capital gain from the sale of the land? That will show as income on their tax return, and at some point that tax return will be used for FAFSA (I don’t know in which year the sale occurred).
I don’t know. They also live in another country. I might even qualify as an independent because my brother became my legal guardian 2 years ago.
Is your brother a court appointed legal guardian here in the U.S?
Are your parents U.S. citizens? Are you?
My parents aren’t citizens, I am.
Yes he’s my court appointed guardian. I remember having to go to court and answering a few questions from the judge.
Carefully read your guardianship papers to see the terms of your guardianship. It may just be temporary guardianship or guardianship which allows your brother to make decisions regarding your education and medical in the US.
@twoinanddone @kelsmom If a student is in legal guardianship has terminated the parents rights, is any money the students receive from them may be considered as income on the following year’s fafsa?
You probably should make an appointment with the FA office since your situation is complicated the calculator may not be accurate. Better to know early on what to expect. If your brother is your legal guardian his income/assets may impact on your EFC.
I think not. Just in answering the questions, once you get to the dependent/independent test, the questions are phrased for the independent student - income, assets. It’s like a 24 year old who becomes independent, but the prior year was dependent and receiving income from the parents. You answer the questions as things are today and with the student’s information from the prior tax year.
It is really unlikely that a US court has terminated the parental rights of a foreign person. The court could have made the OP a ward of the state with immediate physical custody to the brother, but it is likely the court just approved a guardianship agreement and that the OP was never a ward of the state. There are two questions on FAFSA about it (I think 52 and 54). If not a ward of the state at any time after his 13th birthday, then #52 is no. #54 would ask more about the circumstances of this guardianship.
These really are the outlier questions so there is no way to tell if a school can get the OP declared an independent student. For example in this case, the parents do have assets, the student isn’t estranged, he knows how to contact them, his brother isn’t financially responsible for him. It would make sense for him to be a dependent student. Another case may be that a student really is living independently (financially) from the overseas parents.
In most cases, if this is a full court appointed legal guardianship…the student would,be independent for financial aid purposes…and the only financials on the FAFSA would be the student financials.
HOWEVER, Profile schools could ask for different information.