<p>I have a friend whose divorce decree states that the father will not have to contribute to college costs. Her daughter is applying to CSS schools and she believes that her ex's income will not come into play, rendering her with a significantly lower EFC. My feeling is that because there is no legal requirement that parents pay anything for college the divorce decree isn't worth anything for CSS schools. Dad has never missed or been late on a child support payment but has little physical contact with kids and has substantial income. Does anyone have any knowledge about how this works?</p>
<p>I think correct right in assuming that colleges will not care about what the divorce decree states. If the student wants institutional aid she will have to provide them with the info they require. She probably won’t get a waiver as Dad has had contact via his support payments. Not all Profile school require NCP info though…your friend can find the chart of those that do on the College Board website, although it would be a good idea to verify that with the schools the D is applying to.</p>
<p>CSS schools are not interested in the terms of the divorce decree. If you could get out of paying that easily everyone would do it.
For schools that include non-custodial parent information (and I think most CSS schools do) she will have to include his financial information.</p>
<p>It sounds like she should stick to FAFSA only schools and any CSS schools that don’t require NCP information. However, keep in mind that most FAFSA only schools don’t have the money to meet full need, so she will very likely be asked to pay more than her EFC.</p>
<p>Is the mom’s income low? It’s possible that she could come close to getting her need met at a FAFSA school if her state has a decent aid program. I know it’s a common perception on CC that FAFSA schools do not meet need, but I’ve seen many low-income kids get 100% of their need met by the SUNY schools without big merit scholarships and often with no merit aid at all. This would include a Stafford/Perkins loan but, as we all know, there’s usually a decent amount of “fat” in those COA budgets so the student doesn’t necessarily have to accept the full amount.</p>
<p>*Her daughter is applying to CSS schools and she believes that her ex’s income will not come into play, rendering her with a significantly lower EFC. *</p>
<p>No…not at schools that require NCP info.</p>
<p>If your friend won’t believe you when you tell her, tell her to call the schools’ FA offices to find out herself. </p>
<p>As said above, if such statements in divorce decrees were honors by colleges (and they’re not), then all would put in their decrees that they don’t have to pay for college (and, heck, the CPs would put that in their decrees as well!!)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. Mom probably makes $50-60K plus child support. She has three kids. I’m not sure where that puts her EFC. She also thinks that daughter is amazing (don’t we all) and schools will offer her plenty of merit scholarships, however with an ACT in the upper 20’s I think this is unlikely and she may actually have difficulty getting into her 1st choice schools.</p>
<p>Does she have some solid safeties, both academically and financially? If so, there’s probably no harm in applying widely. If not, she may not be a very happy camper when acceptances and award letters come in. It’s hard to get across to some parents that they should make their kids choose at least one safety. But the late spring/summer threads on this board bear witness to the wisdom of doing so.</p>
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<p>Exactly the point. The divorcee agreement is between the parents, it does not involve the school. The school is not bound by an agreement between two third parties. That might place an undue burden on the custodial parent, but that is between the custodial and non-custodial parent. </p>
<p>The child is caught in the middle, unfortunately, there is no easy way around it for schools that want income and assets of both parents.</p>
<p>The child support will be added in some way on the financial aid forms. So if it’s that number is actually very important for her to remember to include. </p>
<p>She can look for Profile schools that do NOT require the non-custodial parent to report. There are many of them. However, the most generous schools DO require that the non-custodial parent info be reported…and they do not care about divorce stipulations.</p>
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Megmo, I think if you scan the list you’ll see most profile schools do not require NCP info.
<a href=“https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv[/url]”>https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv</a></p>
<p>Just because the CSS profile does not list the school as requiring NCP info, does not mean that the school it self will still not require non-custodial info using their own forms (many will ask).</p>
<p>Also just because a school uses the CSS profile, does not necessarily mean that they will meet 100% demonstrated need. </p>
<p>For example, American, which uses the profile with no NCP, meets 93% demonstrated need for first time freshmen and 87% percent overall for full time students. Average need scholarship/grant package is 17,325 freshman year, 13920 (on average overall including freshmen) which is not a lot on the ~51k price tag.</p>
<p>51% of their students have loans</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/cds2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/cds2010.pdf</a></p>