<p>My parents are in the middle of a divorce, which may or may not be finished before UMich's deadline for the FAFSA or the CSS/Profile. This is problematic because my mother is a homemaker and my father is the one who files tax returns; however, as part of his expat package, his company's accountants do his taxes and as of 12/13 not even the 2010 tax return was finished. This means I won't be able to fill out any sections of any financial aid applications requiring info from tax returns, as tax returns are the only way my mother or I can know about the family's finances short of going to her lawyer (and raising her legal fees).</p>
<p>My second problem is that even though the FAFSA does not consider the non-custodial parent's income and assets, I believe the CSS/Profile does (if the noncustodial profile is filled out). If my father actually does so before the deadline, then I don't think I'll qualify for any aid that looks at the CSS/Profile because he earns at least 225K/year, a bit less than 275K if his bonus is factored in. I won't receive a penny of this money for my last two years of college, however, because in the most recent mediation session he announced that he refused to pay for my college tuition because it was "not related to the divorce".</p>
<p>According to EFC calculators, my mother's income (a proposed 83K/year pre-tax in alimony) is enough that I wouldn't qualify for a Pell Grant or such. However, she is 54 years old, turning 55 in half a year, and after 10+ years of being a homemaker the expert opinion of a vocational consultant is that the best she could do is to make 20-25K/year doing clerical work because her degrees were in engineering and her knowledge is completely outdated. If my mother pays as much as the EFC calculators estimate, she'll run out of funds only a few years into retirement and her standard of living would drop drastically even before retirement. Most of the family assets are locked into 401(k)s or IRAs - in total there's less than 50K in cash that can be split in the property division- and the little bit my mother's saved away is going towards her increasing legal fees. Even though she's more than willing to make the sacrifice for me, I don't want her to do so unless absolutely necessary. </p>
<p>I'm looking into scholarships and grants, but most of the scholarships I've seen to date are merit-based and my freshman year was very rough academically because of a difficult transition and family problems. This is the first time I've had to apply to financial aid, so I'm not really sure what else is available besides loans. Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>You will probably need to focus on FAFSA only schools in your state. Profile schools will look at your father’s income, and they don’t care if he won’t pay, so you will be deemed full pay.</p>
<p>Try a CC for your soph year and then transfer to a state school for your last 2 years.</p>
<p>My parents are going through the same thing currently, my mother’s lawyer told us that my father would be required to pay a portion of my college tuition. Apparently he is required by law because I went directly to college after high school.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t know much about the process because I’m Pell Grant eligible and it currently covers tuition. That and my dad currently makes under 12k a year.</p>
<p>@Waverly - The thing is, I’m in the middle of my sophomore year at UMich right now, with transfer credits I’m already at junior standing and by my junior year I’ll probably have senior standing. If I transfer, they might not all transfer over, especially since I’m working on my major requirements right now. </p>
<p>@Jcyochum - Depending on what state you live in, I believe divorce settlements can include a college support clause. My mom’s lawyer was telling us that my father has a moral obligation to pay for my college education but, well, a moral obligation isn’t legally binding in any way, shape, or form so …</p>
<p>The only thing you can try other than transfer to a cheaper local State School which you can commute and afford is to appeal to UMich for financial aid. I am sure UM FA office gets tons of these all the time, so they should know how to handle this.</p>
<p>Assuming you’re in state and haven’t accumulated much debt, if you’re only a year from graduating it’s probably worth it to borrow the money and graduate.</p>
<p>Do you think your dad may be just saying this in the negotiation phase and will contribute to see you graduate?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I’m an out-of-state student :</p>
<p>I wish he was just saying it as part of the negotiations but there’s a temporary court order in place that requires any shortfall for my tuition this year to come from the joint security accounts, which he controls. As of now, he’s in violation of that court order since he still hasn’t transferred the money out into the joint bank account so given his track record in the divorce case alone, I’m not holding out on much hope that he’ll decide to keep paying</p>
<p>Have you asked your dad why he is punishing you and jeopardizing your education and future as if YOU were his spouse he is divorcing? He may be divorcing your mother, but he is NOT divorcing you. Maybe he needs you to bluntly remind him of this and wake him up to the fact that he is acting out at you for no good reason. Parents are sometimes more immature than their children.</p>
<p>An OOS student at UMich has a $50k bill…how have you been paying for it so far?</p>
<p>You may not be able to continue at UMich with your current situation. You can’t borrow that much and your mom won’t likely co-sign.</p>
<p>What are your instate schools? What is your major? </p>
<p>Is there an instate school that you can commute to?</p>
<p>It’s not a big enough issue to worry about what credits will transfer…likely most if not all will. Your bigger issue is that you don’t have the money for UMich and as an OOS student, UMich isn’t going to help you.</p>
<p>Have you asked your dad why he is punishing you and jeopardizing your education and future as if YOU were his spouse he is divorcing?</p>
<p>He’s likely annoyed about the alimony and the splitting of 401k and other assets. And, if the mom initiated the divorce, he’s angry about that, too.</p>
<p>My dad filed for divorce roughly 5 months after accepting a lateral move in GE and moving to China. He covered tuition my freshman year because he hadn’t filed for divorce yet, I believe, and for my sophomore year there’s a temporary order in place that requires both of my parents to pay for my college expenses using Ed Vest accounts and to cover the shortfall using joint security accounts. So, assuming my mom’s lawyer goes after him for refusing to listen to the court order, my tuition sophomore year won’t be a problem and there’ll be ~10k left.</p>
<p>My mom has agreed to cosign with me if I need to take out student loans and by the end of this year, I believe that I’ll have roughly ~19K so that’s at least 1 more semester of tuition covered.</p>
<p>In-state the best school is UW-Madison. I’m an Economics major right now but because I intend to go into Business/Finance after my undergraduate before getting and MBA and ultimately breaking into investment banking my mom and I both agree that if I really needed to transfer, the only way she’d allow it is if I managed to enter their business program.</p>
<p>I think you should hunkerdown at UMich and graduate from there. Transfer at this point means some of the credits will not be recognized by UW-M and as a result, you will be delayed in graduating. So the cost is going to be the same. That was the reason I stayed and not transfter to BC or Wake when I went to college as an accounting major.</p>
<p>Go finish your degree, get a good job and pay it back ASAP so you will not have to pay a lot of interests.</p>