Anyone have any experience with financial aid if you have a single year with unusually higher income than normal? Income is from self-employment.
DH was doing some side gigs while self employed. He was also working his regular full time job. He had a big bump the first year of FAFSA and CSS and we provided a statement that detailed the one-time increase along with his estimated income for the current tax year. The school thanked us for the info and calculated our payment amount. It dropped a bit the second year without the pay bump. It is a “meets full need” school. YMMV.
That is what I was thinking, I would need to contact school with explanation, and possibly previous years earnings as a comparison.
Thank you for your reply.
@Crbdad you will be asking each school for a special circumstances consideration. You need to contact each college and find out their process for doing this. They will tell you what kind of documentation you need, and when this should be done at their college. The process is not the same at every college.
Colleges are not required to do these reviews. Some do…and some just don’t.
For those that do these, they are handled on a case by case basis.
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Two things to keep in mind.
One is that if that “extra income” ended up in a bank account or normal mutual fund (ie, not a retirement fund), then having this money available will impact need based financial aid. This was a common issue back when high tech people were seeing one-time only payments from the dot com bubble.
Another issue is that self employed people frequently have a less than ideal result from need based financial aid. Most of the self employed people that I know have sent their kids to in-state public universities (if they live in the US).
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You will also need to demonstrate that this is ONE time in a very well documented way.
Yep, aiming for in state public.
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I am sure it will be a lengthy process, with varying degrees of success at different schools.