<p>I have a problem and need some advice. My parents are divorced and I used to live with my mom up until about 6 months ago. Because of certain family problems I moved in with my grandparents and haven't spoken to my mom for a few months. Problem is this; how do I file my fafsa? I no longer live with her, however all my official documents are still under her. What can I do to file officialy under my grandparents?</p>
<p>FAFSA only requires that you include the custodial parent's info. They define custodial parent as the parent you lived with the most during the last 12 months. That would be your Mom.</p>
<p>Dad's income won't be a factor unless he provides alimony or child support, in which case it will show as part of your Mom's income.</p>
<p>Sorry for the late response, I was out of town. </p>
<p>I understand that however I need to file financial aid under my grandparents, not my mother. My mothers income is high for fafsa so they won't give me much financial aid under her, and she won't help me anyway. Do I put in my grandparents info in Fafsa? What is a custodial parent exactly anywya? Is there some special paperowrk that I must file for this?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I also forgot to mention that I am currently on my moms income tax. However she has not filed the last one yet. Will it be a problem if I stay on her income tax and declare in my Fafsa my grandparents as my guardians? Does fafsa verify these things? I am really clueless about how this whole thing works.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I belive that, unless your grandparents are legally your guardians (i.e., they have gone to court and a judge has made a ruling that your mother loses her parental rights, at least temporarily, and given legal custody of you to your grandparents), the living arrangements are informal and irrelevant. You still need to use your mother's information. It also doesn't matter that she won't help you; all that matters is if she is able to help you. (Otherwise, every parent would refuse to fund a college education so they could get more financial aid.)</p>
<p>And yes, the fact that your mother has claimed you a dependent on her income taxes is probably fatal to the idea of using your grandparents' info anyway.</p>
<p>Repeating:</p>
<p>FAFSA only requires that you include the custodial parent's info. They define custodial parent as the parent you lived with the most during the last 12 months. That would be your Mom.</p>
<p>Is there any way to do this then other then then my mother giving up parental rights? That is just too complicated and long. She did not do the new income tax yet so will it be fine if she doesn't include me on the new one? Also what information would I be inputting for my grandparents seeing as they don't do income tax and receive ssi?</p>
<p>You need to contact a financial aid officer at one of the schools you're applying to and discuss the situation. My guess is that no, there's no other way, and it's not "fine" if she doesn't deduct you on this year's taxes. For financial aid purposes, you will still be considered a dependent of your mother unless you meet the FAFSA requirements for being an independent student. The process is supposed to be complicated and long; otherwise everyone would do it.</p>
<p>Are you saying that your grandparents are now supporting you completely on their SSI income?</p>
<p>Well I work at a small job for cash, but other hten that basically yes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Who is Considered a Parent?</p>
<p>The term "parent" is not restricted to biological parents. There are instances (such as when a grandparent legally adopts the applicant) in which a person other than a biological parent is treated as a parent, and in these instances, the parental questions on the application must be answered, since they apply to such an individual (or individuals).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
A foster parent, legal guardian, or a grandparent or other relative is not treated as a parent for purposes of filing a FAFSA unless that person has legally adopted the applicant. An adoptive parent is treated in the same manner as a biological parent on the FAFSA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Based on the above it looks as if even if your grandparents were your legal guardians you could not use their information for FAFSA. Whether you are claimed as a dependant on your mothers income tax makes no difference on FAFSA (for instance we do not claim our son on our taxes because he has a job and earns over the threshold for us to claim him on tax but we are able to claim him on FAFSA because he is considered a dependant for FAFSA purposes i.e. can answer no to all the dependancy questions.) I would agree with Chedva that you should contact your Financial Aid officer at school and ask if there is anything to be done.</p>
<p>I have a situation that is quite similar on my hands.</p>
<p>I currently live with my grandparents, but lived with my mother through April of last year (which would mean I have lived with my grandparents for greater than 50% of the past year). My parents are divorced and my mother is my legal guardian, but I have very little contact with her. My grandparents and father provide exclusively for my financial well-being (what my father provides is the child support... so that would qualify as my mother's income, I'm assuming).</p>
<p>I would like to claim my mother as my parent because she makes significantly less money than my father. Considering I'm under her legal custody, would I file only her as a parent on the FAFSA and my father as a non-custodial parent or would I file for both her and my father on the FAFSA?</p>
[quote]
If your parents are divorced (or separated - see below for more information), answer the questions about the parent you lived with more during the 12 months preceding the date you complete the FAFSA. If you did not live with one parent more than the other, give answers about the parent who provided more financial support during the 12 months preceding the date you complete the FAFSA, or during the most recent year that you actually received support from a parent. If this parent has remarried as of the date you fill out the FAFSA, answer the questions on the remaining sections of the FAFSA about that parent and the person he or she married (your stepparent).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you lived with your Mom till April and have not lived with your dad I would think (based on the above) that you should be able to put your Mom on FAFSA. Kind of a tricky situation.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Is there any way to do this then other then then my mother giving up parental rights? >></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Your grandparents would have to LEGALLY become your guardians. Still...it is now 2007 and even IF you did this, it would not matter for the FAFSA you are completing which uses information from 2006 tax year. And the reasons are simple...many students would move in with less than wealthy grandparents, and just say that their wealthy parents are not going to pay. That is NOT permitted under finaid application guidelines. Your parents are your parents for finaid purposes (in the case of divorced parents, the custodial parent is the only one who reports on the FAFSA as noted by SBlake), and there are very few ways to get around that. If your grandparents become your LEGAL guardians in 2007, you can use their information NEXT year. Oh...and for the record...it doesn't matter what your mom does on her taxes...even if she doesn't declare you as a dependent for 2006, you still MUST use her information when completing the FAFSA as she is LEGALLY your custodial parent.</p>
<p>actually according to
[quote]
A foster parent, legal guardian, or a grandparent or other relative is not treated as a parent for purposes of filing a FAFSA unless that person has legally adopted the applicant. An adoptive parent is treated in the same manner as a biological parent on the FAFSA.
[/quote]
from <a href="http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/publications/completing_fafsa/2007_2008/ques5.html%5B/url%5D">http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/publications/completing_fafsa/2007_2008/ques5.html</a></p>
<p>even if your gparents legally become your guardians you cannot use their info for FAFSA. Anyway unless you are starting college very young you probably are past the guardian stage. From what I have read on previous posts you have to provide a lot of proof that you have had no contact or financial support from a parent for years to be able to avoid using the parent on FAFSA.</p>
<p>Here's another twist on the grandparent question. I ask it in an open forum because I bet I'm not the only person in this situation.
My child and I will be filling out FAFSA and probably PROFILE in the next couple of years. I'm a single mom, divorced for more than five years, with no child support. My mother is retired and lives in our household.
My understanding is my mother's (small) social security income will not be counted as family income on the FAFSA. Does it have any impact on PROFILE?
And since an elderly person is part of my household, will that positively affect my "asset protection allowance?" on the FAFSA calculation? Is there any way to indicate that I have financial responsibilities for an aging parent?
Is it worth going down the emotional road of trying to convince a rather independent elder to become my "dependent" for taxes and/or financial aid forms in the next few years?</p>
<p>There is a question on the Profile that asks about other people you support:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Enter the amount paid to support any relatives not included in Section FM of the PROFILE Application.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>(I don't really remember which is Section FM.) And you would of course list your mother as a member of your household - the question does ask for the person's relationship to the student, and their age. That will of course indicate that she is elderly.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, your mother's social security income will not be part of the Profile. It only asks about parental assets.</p>
<p>Remember that "dependent" for tax purposes is very different than for financial aid forms. Profile doesn't even talk about "dependents", other than minors. It's only who's in your household and how much you spend to support them, tax dependent or not.</p>
<p>purplexed:</p>
<p>The household number affects the income protection allowance, not the asset protection allowance (which is affected by your age).</p>
<p>In order to include Mom as a household member (for FAFSA purposes) you have to provide over 50% of her support at time of application and going forward for the next year. That will increase your income protection allowance by about $3,500-- so if it's just you and your daughter, adding Mom as a household member will increase the income allowance from $15K to $18.7K. Not a huge deal-- but it would shelter some income.</p>
<p>However, if you're living on limited income, your income may already be so low as to not be assessed at all. Suggest you crunch the numbers using the calculator at FinAid and it will tell you whether you're contributing to the EFC from income, or not-- and you can also see if it changes by changing the household number.</p>
<p>You don't need to declare her as a dependent on taxes to include her in Household for FAFSA. </p>
<p>Your asset protection allowance will depend on your age. 40 - 44 = $16.4K, 45 - 49 = 18.3K. Again, the FinAid calculator is very helpful on these things, since it tells you where each component of the EFC came from, and what each of your allowances are.</p>
<p>Not sure about Profile---</p>
<p>(Mom's income won't be counted in FAFSA)</p>
<p>
[quote]
And since an elderly person is part of my household, will that positively affect my "asset protection allowance?" on the FAFSA calculation? Is there any way to indicate that I have financial responsibilities for an aging parent?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>While the fafsa does not have a section that addresses the care of elderly parents the CSS profile does take into consideration the care of elderly parents in their calculations. There is also a section on the profile that you can write about your situation. You can state that you have an elderly parent that you care for and to what extent you provide for her care and other extenuating circumstances.</p>
<p>From what it sounds like that you mom does not have a considerable income or assets and she is not in a postion to give money to your child, so it will all be pretty much a non issue as grandmom is dependent on you and not the other way around.</p>
<p>Thanks much all of you!</p>