Rhandco. NO. I believe thses parents are divorced. The father pays child support. That usually happens when parents are divorced…not married. If that is the case only the custodial parent info is included on the FAFSA. The student would NOT include the non-custodial parent income or assets on the FAFSA form. The custodial parent includes child and spousal support received on her FAFSA.
If the schools require the Profile, the custodial parent will do the Profile…And again, will not include the non-custodial parent income and assets. The non-custodial parent will then complete the non-custodial parent Profile if required.
It is very possible to have a $0 EFC per FAFSA, and have a higher family contribution per Profile if the school considers the non-custodial parent income and assets.
But non-custodial parent income and assets are never included on the FAFSA.
@mom2collegekids Yes, in fact child support got reduced (I don’t know how much) in December when I turned 18. But the FAFSA is asking for my info for 2014, so wouldn’t child support be included?
I have one younger brother, and my dad is not helping with college costs.
@annoyingdad My mom only filed the 1040. On page 6 it says I qualify for a zero EFC if my mom filed a 2014 IRS Form 1040 but was not required to do so, which she wasn’t according to @lilliana330. Also she wasn’t required to file for any income tax return. So then why isn’t my EFC zero?
Apparently she filed her 1040 as single and didn’t claim me as a dependent even though she primarily supports my brother and I. She said her tax guy said that didn’t matter because she was losing money on her business. Does that have something to do with it? She said she “made a mistake” and will fix it this year and claim me and my bro as dependent because she is legally allowed to… Will schools reconfigure my financial aid offer if she does this?
She is self-employed, she has “business deductions” (claiming losses) so CSS schools will likely add some of that back in.
As for the reduced CS, you will need to contact the schools and show them that the CS has already been reduced, and they may be able to adjust…even tho the change happened in Dec. @kelsmom What does he/she need to do?
Sounds like your mom’s atty didn’t represent her well. The idea of stopping CS before the child even graduates is a bad sign…furthered by evidence that a high-income dad wasn’t req’d to contribute to college (which Calif courts have been considering for years.)
Did you apply to any CSS schools that require NCP info ?? If so, those won’t likely work out financially since your dad won’t pay his share.
What is your app list?
You have a perfect ACT…are you a NMSF? how’d you do on the PSAT???
@mom2collegekids I applied to: 7 UC’s, USC, Case Western, Alabama, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, RPI, and Northeastern. Of these schools I need to fill out the NCP for Northeastern, USC, and CMU. I already crossed USC and Northeastern off the list (along with GA Tech) because I didn’t get a large merit scholarship. CMU might work out for me because they will match financial aid with competing colleges such as RPI which doesn’t require the NCP form.
I don’t have a perfect ACT, I have a 33 composite. 36 M 35 E 34 W 28 S 10 essay. I’m not a NMF… didn’t even take the PSAT. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that until i was a senior.
It sounds like her financial situation is a bit more complicated than your initial posts seemed to indicate. Schedule B is generally used for reporting interest or dividend income of more than $1,500 (meaning not insignificant assets), and schedule D is for reporting capital gains (or losses).
@mom2collegekids I did get the full tuition scholarship with $2500 for engineering! I was really excited when I got the letter from them.
I haven’t visited bama yet, I’m going to wait until after all my acceptances and rejections come in. My AP euro teacher from sophomore year who’s a bama alumni offered to fly me down there and tour the campus if I was really interested, so that’s good news.
Still, that puts the total cost at around $10k a year for room and board, and I wasn’t eligible for pell grants so I’m only allowed to take out $5500 in loans right? I can maybe cover the rest with my part time job, but that’s a stretch.
My mom said she will not contribute anything either.
Does anyone know if this student’s situation would qualify for the Tuition Tax Credit?? If so, then the OP can ask mom if she will GIVE him that money when she gets it every year. That won’t be until a year away, but it can help
In the meantime…ask your GC if there are any local merit awards that you can apply for. Those can also help if the first year has a shortfall while waiting for the tax credit.
“It is not exactly a law, there are cases where there is precedent in NJ, several very recent. Parents had to each pay half the cost of Rutgers tuition to a student who was attending Temple, both arguing they shouldn’t have to pay anything for her college because she decided to attend a private college instead of the in-state state school.”
Case law is still law; you mean it isn’t a statute, I presume.
Temple is a public school (in Pennsylvania, so the student in question would be paying the OOS rate).
“In general, the student gets done a disservice if one parent is rich and the custodial parent is poor, because the rich parent may not have to pay anything past the 18th birthday for child support of any sort.”
In general, a student gets done a disservice if parents are not willing (or decide they are not able) to pay for college, regardless of whether they are married or not. You are aware, I hope, that even very wealthy married couples are under no legal obligation to support their children past age 18?
First of all, it is my personal opinion that it is absolutely unfair that an adult is stuck with his parents’ issues as to whether or not they’ll even fill out a FAFSA or say they’ll not do so, until that prospective student adult reaches age 24 or otherwise meets the FAFSA requirements for age 24. There are people out there that refuse to do anything, refuse torelease any info , just flat out refuse to help their children, regardless of consequences. An 18 year old with such a parent or parents is in a tough place in terms of college funding, not to mention many other things where adult support usually coming from parents is involved. This is an unfairness that I wish was taken to court.
The problem is that few parents would willingly pay a dime for college or find ways to slip the money to the students if there were a way to keep them out of the financial need picture. That’s the way it has worked with most any such program. The whole house of cards of high college costs would come tumbling down if such a challenge should hold up in court.
Are you saying your mom filed her 2014 income taxes already? Really?
Hoping one of the tax experts will chime in…but if this parent is self employed/owns her own business…I’m not sure she can file a 1040a. Also, if she filed as single, and not head of household, wouldn’t Her income threshold for filing be lower?
@thumper1 She didn’t do her 2014 taxes yet so we used info from the 2013 form to approximate it. I overlooked that detail when I copy/pasted the info from the online form in post #21.
Well…that is a very important detail. It’s her 2014 taxes that are going to matter for FAFSA purposes for the 2015-2016 school year.
She should discuss her tax filing status with a tax expert. I’m not one.
Will your mom need to do the business, and capital gains schedules again in 2014? Does she still own her business? Has her income changed? Does she still have significant assets to report on the dividend/interest schedule?
When you did your estimated FAFSA, did you put good estimates for what actually occurred on 2014? Are the numbers similar from 2013 to 2014? If different, it is especially I ortant to use best possible estimates for 2014 and not what was on the 2013 return.
@thumper1 There was no change income that I am aware of, and I think she still owns her business. I will have to ask her for clarification when she gets home.
If she claims me as a dependent in her 2014 taxes, will this make my EFC go down?
