I’m divorced and remarried, my ex-husband is not remarried, we have joint custody in the state of NJ. We have twins entering college fall of 2017 and when we posed this question to an official from a local college we were told that the custodial parent must fill out the form. When we pushed that we had joint custody we were told “well normally one parent does more of the work, so it should be that one”. This doesn’t sound right, and it will make a big difference in the outcome (one income versus two, substantially higher savings with the remarried parent). Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks in advance for the help!
It depends on where the kids spend their time. It is filed using the information of the parent with whom the child lives the most during the year. So if they spend one more day with dad than they do with mom, then dad’s information is used, or vice versa.
"If your parents are divorced or separated and don’t live together, answer the questions about the parent with whom you lived more during the past 12 months.
If you lived the same amount of time with each divorced or separated parent, give answers about the parent who provided more financial support during the past 12 months or during the most recent 12 months that you actually received support from a parent."
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/parent-info#divorced-separated-living-apart
Thank you!
It is not the calendar year, but the 12 months before the FAFSA is filed, so if doing it today, from October 3, 2015 to October 2, 2016. Count overnights.
“well normally one parent does more of the work, so it should be that one”
Yikes! Not exactly correct advice. It is definitely based on days within the previous 12 months, and it does NOT matter who claims the child on the tax return.
And it also doesn’t matter if the other parent is even providing ALL of the support. If a child resides greater than 50% of the time with Parent One…Parent One is the custodial parent on the FAFSA.
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well normally one parent does more of the work, so it should be that one"
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While the wording isn’t correct, I wonder if the person was implying that the parent that “does more of the work” would usually be the parent that the child is living with the most. It’s usually much harder for a NCP to do “more of the work”…lol.
we’re also hearing this second-hand. The person may have also said, “the parent you spend the most nights with.”
A lot of schools are going to enrollment center models, and they have a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none answering general questions. This leads to almost-but-not-quite-good advice sometimes.