I am an international student and my parents are trying to get a green card currently. Because I don’t have a green card right now, I would have to pay a ridiculously high tuition that I probably can’t afford. My question is, when would be like the deadline that I would have to get a green card to get the financial aid. I looked up the deadline for the FAFSA and it was in June. Does this mean that if my parents get green card before June, I could do FAFSA and get some financial aid?
You need to check the FAFSA deadline for each college to which you are applying (it is provided on colleges’ websites). The FAFSA June 30 deadline has little meaning for financial aid awards at most colleges because colleges typically have March 1 or earlier deadlnes if you want financial aid for freshman year, so they can send out notices of financial aid awards before May 1, and most are sent out in March or April. Some have provisions for late applications but those are subject to having money left over to award after already doing so for all who timely applied for aid, and thus a late application can potentially result in getting nothing or a greatly reduced award.
You need to distinguish between federal funds available through FAFSA, for which the deadline really is June 30 (although some federal programs have more availability earlier in the award year), and institutional funds provided by the school, very little of which in the big picture is based on a FAFSA submission.
FAFSA is an app for federal aid, which isn’t much “free” money. If your parents are trying to get a green card, then does that mean that they have a decent income and are demonstrating to the US that if given resident status that they can support themselves? If so, then your FAFSA EFC may be too high for even a small Pell Grant.
Which schools are you applying to?
Are you living in the US now?