<p>Starting next year, one of my parents will only be able to work part-time and receive only 50 - 60% of his/her current salary.</p>
<p>Right now I receive $24,000 a year in financial aid (EXCLUDING loans and work study) from an expensive, private 4 - year university. </p>
<p>My university's pretty accomodating with FA but by no means the most generous. How much more FA can I expect to receive next year?</p>
<p>(I'd rather not give out more personal info but if I have to I will)</p>
<p>Really, the best way for you to get an answer is to go and talk to the financial aid person at your college. Take with you ALL documentation of your parent’s job situation. Every school has a process for considering these types of situations. Your school will tell you their process.</p>
<p>This sounds like an unusual situation, if the decrease in work is by choice. Your aid for the following year will be based on 2011 earnings, and on that point, your family’s earning will still be the same. </p>
<p>If your school doesn’t promise to meet need, and doesn’t do an adjustment, then it’s hard to predict that you’ll get more money. </p>
<p>Usually, when a parent loses their job or has his hours reduced (not by choice), then the school waits to see if a new job is going to be found before doing an adjustment. As Thumper said, a parent provides the documentation to the school. If this is by choice, then I don’t know what you’d provide.</p>
<p>As Thumper wrote, you and your parents need to talk to the FA office for a clear understanding…get what you can in writing. If the answer isn’t favorable, and your parent doesn’t have to cut his hours, then maybe a different decision will need to be made.</p>
<p>However, if your parent’s hours are being reduced (not by choice), then again, the school may wait to see if your parent finds another job or gets his hours increased. </p>
<p>Do you have two working parents or one? Is the other parent fully employed?</p>
<p>The school I go to promises to meet 100% need. </p>
<p>The parent in question is a scientific researcher whose grant money will run out soon (one of the benefactors had financial difficulties and rescinded the grant).</p>
<p>Works for a large, respected university and boss/university can provide ample evidence that grant money is not enough to support current salary (this parent’s salary is completely dependent on grant money).</p>
<p>Switching jobs/getting a 2nd job out of the question.</p>
<p>2nd parent works full time. </p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! Hope the added details will help me get more input.</p>
<p>Um, first, it doesn’t matter if it’s by choice or not. Financial aid is awarded based on the previous year’s taxes and they don’t call you up and ask, “Hey, why did you earn $30K less?” So, in general, a decrease in your parents’ 2012 income will not affect your financial aid until the 2013-2014 school year. </p>
<p><em>However,</em> you can always ask the financial aid office to consider adjusting your 2012-2013 award. You will, in essence, be asking for their mercy so it could help, at that point, to explain that it’s involuntary and what a difficult financial burden this would be to your family. There’s a good chance that they do nothing about the 2012-2013 award or just give your parents access to more loans. If you do not currently have a lot of work-study or you do not have the max student loans, you may be able to get increases there. By the way, if you don’t have the max student loans this year, you may want to take that out and bank the money to help you out next year.</p>
<p>One other idea for you: Are you interested in becoming an RA? At a lot of schools, that gives you free room (?and board?-- I’m not sure) and that would surely be a help to your family.</p>
<p>Um, first, it doesn’t matter if it’s by choice or not.</p>
<p>What I meant was that when a parent has lost his job, you can show documentation when you appeal for some kind of consideration/adjustment to “parent contribution”. When a parent chooses to leave a job, then it’s probably not going to get the same consideration for professional judgment for an aid adjustment. </p>
<p>Maybe I’m wrong, but if I had two students appealing for some kind of adjustment, I would have more sympathy for the student whose parent lost his job than for the one whose parent chose to quit (or cut back hours) unless it was for documented health reasons or similar.</p>
<p>That said, this situation doesn’t involve choice. </p>
<p>The student says that he’s receiving $24k in aid (not counting loans and work study) which might mean another $6k-8k in aid. </p>
<p>2College is right…if you’re not at the max student loans, then that can be a source.</p>
<p>It sounds like your family contribution is about $22 - 27k …is that right? </p>
<p>Would you say that your parents’ income in 2012 will be less than $100k combined?</p>
<p>It sounds like your parent will be losing their job sometime during this school year. That being the case, you would need to contact your college to find out if/how they deal with these types of circumstances. As noted above…you will need to provide documentation of the job loss. Some schools will NOT consider this type of thing until some period after the job loss takes place (because many folks DO get other jobs in the interim). </p>
<p>We were in this type of position when our son was a freshman in college. We contacted his university to find out what to do. They gave us the process…but also told us that they didn’t even CONSIDER these types of requests until 6 months after the job termination. In our case, as in yours, one parent was still working full time. We collected all of the necessary documentation…in case we needed to use it. </p>
<p>Your school might very well be willing to make an adjustment IF your family income is very significantly affected…but they might not be either. This is entirely up to the school.</p>
<p>SO…call YOUR college and ask for the process for a special circumstances consideration in light of a job loss. They will tell you their process.</p>