So long stroy short, wife and I have been doing our best to stay together for our son for years, especailly now that he is a Junior and going to apply for college next year. All the more pressure piling on him.
However, other circumstances and issues are not making it easy. I been having major problems with my in-laws and lately its got worst. Also I just lost my job of 25 years as the company shut down.
If my wife and I are divorced, will there be any impact on our son’s financial aid application?
We have a rental that is not being leased out. This because wife thinks if we are to divorce then she and her parents will likely move into the rental. (good thinkg, actually) Also wife is on disability, so I will be helping with her living expense (so I got to find a job soon), and the kid will be living half of the time with her.
How does FAFSA and CSS if each divorced parent lives in their own property? Will both be counted? I head that for class of 2024, the 2022 tax return woudl be used. But if I had filed as married jointly while still had a job, do I have to explain to them that I lost my job just a month into 2023 after filing my 2022 tax?
FAFSA counts only the custodial parent household (will be the parent who provides the most financial support for the 2024-2025 academic year; currently the parent the student lives with most).
For colleges that use the CSS Profile, some require only the custodial parent, but some require both parents. See CSS Profile Participating Institutions and Programs (second to last column), but verify on college web sites, since errors have been noticed in this list in the past.
Some colleges use their own supplemental forms (e.g. Princeton and Chicago); their financial aid policies with respect to divorced parents should be checked on their own web sites.
Please use net price calculators now as an estimate only. They are currently set for students starting college in fall 2023. That’s not your kid.
Also, additional properties and especially rentals will factor into your financial equation. And if you divorce, that further renders the NPCs sometimes less accurate.
In addition, if you divorce, you will not be able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool when completing the FAFSA. If already divorced and not living together when you file the FAFSA, you will need to only enter the custodial parent finances (parent providing the bulk of the financial support).
In many cases, the CSS Profile asks for everything…so the equity in both of your residences could be counted…one on the custodial parent form…and one on the non-custodial one if required by the college.
If you divorce and live together…there is no change at all to how you file the forms because you are both bio parents.
I would strongly suggest your student look at schools that will be affordable with merit aid…which doesn’t consider family finances at all.
Remember, for financial aid purposes, prior prior year tax year is used to complete the forms. So for 2024-2025, you will be using 2022 tax return info.
If you don’t have a job by then, you can contact the colleges for a special circumstances consideration due to loss of substantial income.
If you do divorce and no longer live together, you would only use the custodial parent on the financial aid forms. For FAFSA…that’s it. For Profile, some schools require a non-custodial parent form.
The good news too is - if you find you don’t qualify for need aid based on assets, etc. there are a lot of low and lower cost schools, sometimes depending on student statistics, that may work within your financial picture outside of need based aid.
