Maximum income a single childless person can get the maximum Pell grant?

Paying for College
1

<p>I don't want to spin my wheels here. How much money can I make as a full time student before my Pell grant starts decreasing at a fraction of a dollar per dollar? I'm single, no kids, no official disability.</p>

<p>I think I previously determined from trial and error on the EFC calculator page that I could make up to the standard deduction before the Pell grant started to decrease. Is that correct? I want to make more to pay bills, but not if I'm effectively working for less than minimum wage when I could spend that time studying.</p>

2

<p>Here’s a document with the worksheets for the calculation:
<a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You’re an independent student, right? If so, look at Worksheet B which starts at page 21. You have an income protection allowance of $9730. Plus you also have an allowance for taxes and FICA. So basically whatever is taken out of your paycheck for FICA is added to the income protection amount. After the allowances, half your income goes to EFC. </p>

<p>So, I’m guessing the point at which your earnings would start to push up your EFC probably a little under $11,000. The FICA is 7.65%, so for easy math we know that you are paying out $765 on the first $10,000 you earn, and if we add that to the basic income protection, that pushes up the allowance to $10,495. As you earn more than $10K, you start to owe income taxes as well as FICA so that will push up the allowance a little more. </p>

3

<p>Thank you for that detailed info. If I work exactly 20 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, at my call center job, I’ll make about $12,000, which looks like the sweet spot as far as Pell grant and health insurance subsidies goes.</p>