<p>Hi. I am a 19 year old college student paying my FULL tuition BY MYSELF. My parents refuse to help me. I still live at home and they had to claim me on their taxes since I was in highschool during this last tax season. When applying for financial aid, the fafsa asked for my parents tax return income, social security numbers, ect. If I do qualify for financial aid, will the loan be under my parents name or mine?</p>
<p>PLEASE HELP ME I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL BUT MY PARENTS ARE UNKNOWINGLY KEEPING ME FROM DOING SO BY NOT HELPING ME.</p>
<p>Your parents’ income will count against you for financial aid purposes until you are 24, married, or a military veteran.</p>
<p>If they are poor to the point that the colleges won’t expect any contribution from them anyway, it does not matter, as long as they are willing to fill in financial aid forms. If they are wealthy but won’t contribute, your options are:</p>
<p>Assure your parents that providing the information is only used for determining financial aid. If they refuse to fill out the fafsa it will be difficult to get any financial aid except merit money.</p>
<p>The loans that you take out will be under your name only. Completing the FAFSA will determine whether you are eligible for subsidized loans, which do not require payments or incur interest while you are still in school.</p>
<p>Filling out the FAFSA does not obligate your parents – or even you – for a loan. It just determines what loans your parents and you can get if you want them. But it also determines aid given to you by schools. So it’s very important that you fill it out (every year in January, updating it after taxes are filed).</p>
<p>I’m sorry this is happening to you. My DH family did this exact thing and we are in our mid 40’s still paying off his school loans (they do include medical school). It hurt that while his parents income was so high that there was no fin. aide we didn’t blame them either because they felt a college education was something that should be earned. We have let our kids know we will pay there undergrad education up to a certain $ amount but that grad/med school was on them. We also have stressed for them to find schools we could afford so they wouldn’t have loans for undergrad education. I really wish you luck and remember you could try to an ROTC scholarship if you don’t mind serving for a few years.</p>
<p>Probably. If your family is low income, you *may *be eligible for the Perkins loan but it has very limited funding and schools usually have more eligible students than they have funds.</p>
<p>Other loans are the parent PLUS loan, which is taken out by parents. Then there are private loans, but they would have to be either taken out by your parents or cosigned by them.</p>
<p>By the way, whether your parents claim you on their taxes or not is irrelevant for FA purposes. Until you are 24, you are a dependent for FA purposes and will be required to report their financial information unless you can answer yes to one of the other dependency questions (married, a veteran, providing >50% support to your own dependent, doing a graduate or professional degree etc). Being claimed on your parents taxes or being self supporting will not make you independent for FAFSA.</p>
<p>Here is the way it works: Until you meet the FAFSA independent requirements, not the IRS or any other requirements, you are DEPENDENT, and need your parents asset and tax information. Basically, you have to be age 24, married, have a dependent, be a veteran, was a ward of the state when a miinor or been at a homeless shelter or at risk of being, to be independent.</p>
<p>It’s not too late to get financial aid for the 2012-13 school year, retroactively, which means refunds if you have paid. If your parents are truly low income, you might qualify for PELL grants. Otherwise. the Stafford loans are the only guarantee, $5500 for freshman year in your name. Your parents can apply for PLUS (parent loans) but they have to qualify. It is not automattic. The Staffords and PELL are pretty much entitlements, but you need to have your parents fill out their section of the FAFSA for the 2012-13 school year which uses 2011 tax return information to get any of that money. FOr the upcoming school year, 2013-14, you need to fill out the corresponding FAFSA with using 2012 tax info for the income. Assets are on the day you actually fill out the form so make sure you don’t have earmarked funds in there that are going to be gone in the near future. 20% of ANY of your assets, and 5.6% of parental assets over their protection allowance will go right on to the FAFSA. </p>
<p>Do you know about how much your parents made in 2011 and 2012. Like ballpark? To get PELL, it’s gotta be low income. Were you eligible for free lunches? Do you think they make under, say $50-60K a year? Because otherwise it’s just loans. </p>
<p>Some parents seem to think that by just saying they won’t pay, the school will come up with money, but that is NOT the case. Any financial aid you get will be tied to their income. Do they know that you are paying it all out of pocket right now and that there is no money for the taking unless they fill out the forms and unless they are deemed low income enough for you to qualify for federal aid? Any other money is determined by the school, and you might want to talk to them about what they have available. But very few schools meet full need. Still if you have the need, get that paperwork so that you are in line for what they may be distributing next year.</p>