<p>Looking ahead to the 2012-2013 school year when I will most likely be married and my spouse and I will be attending the same institution, I had a question about married income protection. I notice that for 2010-2011 it is the same amount for a married or unmarried independent student. The difference is that with the married student, instead of being subtracted from individual income, it is subtracted from combined income.</p>
<p>Am I seeing this right? Theoretically, if both student and spouse made $8000 a year totaling to $16000, would they only get a single $7780 allowance, making their income for contribution purposes something like $8000 even though they are both attending school and both need the same amount of money that a single person earning $8000 a year would need?</p>
<p>In other words, do married people both enrolled at least half-time get the same income protection as single independent students subtracted from the combined total of both of their incomes or is there something to prevent ridiculously high EFCs from part-time work throughout the year? This seems to immediately disqualify married couples from receiving a lot of federal financial aid if they both work even part-time. It seems like it must be wrong, but I can't seem to find anything to the contrary.</p>
<p>The worksheet clearly says that the allowances are the same, but married people have to add both their and their spouse's income up instead of their income alone, or having a bigger allowance to account for the fact that there are two people with two sets of identical expenses. This is the formula guide I am looking at, formula B: <a href="http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/111609EFCFormulaGuide20102011.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/111609EFCFormulaGuide20102011.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>A couple working 15 hours a week for minimum wage would exceed this allowance by thousands of dollars whereas a single person would be thousands of dollars below it (and rightly so!). It just seems absolutely prohibitive, illogical and not at all in the spirit of our tax system or the FAFSA, for that matter, but I cannot find anything to go against it.</p>
<p>Come now, anyone who has had experience with married FAFSAs with both students enrolled full-time? :(</p>
<p>Sorry - on lunch & trying to hurry - I had the IPA for the independent student with dependents other than a spouse. That is a bit more forgiving, but that is because the expectation is that there are different sorts of expenses related to dependents than there are with just two married folks. Right or wrong, it’s what the regulations state.</p>
<p>This allowance provides for the basic living expenses of a family. It varies according to the number in the student’s household and the number in college in 2010–11, as reported on the FAFSA. In general, a school can assume that 30% of the income protection allowance amount is for food, 22% for housing, 9% for transportation expenses, 16% for clothing and personal care, 11% for medical care, and 12% for other family consumption.</p>
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<p>Housing is going to be static for one or two, and there are other assumptions that it isn’t necessarily twice as expensive for two.</p>
<p>Thank you for granting some insight into the logic that constitutes the income protection allowance. I think I understand their reasoning a bit better now, even if I do think it is entirely wrong.</p>
<p>And yes – that is what I have learned over the course of a few days of rigorous inquiry of both FAFSA staff and my school’s financial aid staff. Everybody who I asked about it seemed to think it was pretty backwards, and I have to agree, but I’d consider the case closed.</p>
<p>I do have to wonder why housing costs being held static are considered a factor, since I do not know very many people (any) dependent upon financial aid for room and board who do not have roommates already splitting the cost whose incomes they do not have to report on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>There are other benefits to be sure, but probably 90% of college expenses are exactly the same for married students without dependents who are both full-time, and everything that is changed is not by very much. For example, at my school and all other schools in this state, it is advantageous to purchase individual health insurance for both people rather than get on a married policy – there are not many savings involved in being married that normal college students who only need to report their own income do not already partake of.</p>
<p>However there is some respite in the max of $3500 employment allowance if both people worked during the tax year. It is 35% of the lesser of the two incomes earned from working – it is not much, but it is still something, and I am certainly grateful for it. I do not like, though, that the logic for shafting married people is almost entirely false and do not appreciate being considered moderately affluent (by my standards) for working part-time for less than $10 an hour and full-time for the same a few months a year while my spouse does the same.</p>