<p>I would ask to talk to a Financial aid officer of the school you have in mind and ask some quesitons. One thing I did not mention is that most schools tend to give their best financial aid packages to the freshmen because they are trying to put together the best class they can. In some situations, it is wise to take a gap year, the aid to returning students is not good in the case of changed financial circumstances. It won’t do you any good to simply not apply for aid the first year, because the issue at hand is that most of the money in the financial aid budget goes to freshmen and they are taken care of first. In every school I know, the returning students have later dates for their aid packages, and though schools do try to keep the packages about the same, most of them do give less in subsequent years as there is a prevailing philosophy that the students should be taking on more of the cost each year of college. In a situation as you outline, it would be wise that the fin aid office, and an officer there be aware of the situation from the onset if they will take that into consideration. It won’t hurt your admissions chances at schools where admissions is need blind which is the case at most all state school to discuss these things.</p>