<p>This is probably a newbie fin aid question, but...</p>
<p>I am a junior in high school. My parents divorced a year ago, and my dad is now getting remarried. How will my stepmom-to-be affect my financial aid? If it matters, I am thinking mostly about liberal arts schools, and my parents make around 120k, while my stepmom will make about 50k.</p>
<p>Which parent do you live with? For the FAFSA, if your custodial parent has remarried, you'll have to incude the stepparent income. For the CSS Profile, you would also have to include the step-parent's income, even if you don't live with your father, I think. </p>
<p>"My parents are divorced, and the parent I'm living with has remarried. Does my step-parent have to report his or her income and assets on the FAFSA?"</p>
<p>Yes, provided that the parent you're living with is the one filling out the FAFSA (your custodial parent). If your step-parent is married to them at the time you fill out the FAFSA, they must report their income and assets even if they weren't married to them in the previous year. </p>
<p>"My custodial parent remarried and signed a prenuptial agreement that absolves the step-parent from financial responsibility for my education. Why does my step-parent have to provide financial information on the FAFSA?"</p>
<p>Prenuptial agreements are ignored by the federal need analysis process. After all, two individuals (parent and step-parent) cannot make an agreement between them that is binding on a third party (the federal government). The federal government considers the step-parent a source of support regardless of any prenuptial agreements to the contrary. If a step-parent marries the parent, he or she is considered responsible for supporting the parent and children even if he or she is unwilling to do so.</p>
<p>I split my time between my mom's and my dad's. So all 3 are custodial right? Ouch, I am getting nothing.</p>
<p>No. For FAFSA, you have to have <em>a</em> parent, and that parent has to be the one you spend more time, or if you spend <em>exactly</em> the same amount of time, then the parent who provides more financial support. So on the FAFSA you would have either one or two parents -- either your mother, or your father and stepmother. Are you a Junior now? If you're a Junior, then it is to your advantage for the FAFSA to live more with your mother than your father, even if that's just an extra week or so during the summer. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>"Financial aid applications can be somewhat confusing because there are several different criteria applied for different kinds of parenthood: </p>
<p>1.The parent with whom the child lived the most during the past 12 months.
2.The parent who provided the most financial support to the child during the past 12 months. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The parent who provided more than half the child's support (and will continue to do so). </p></li>
<li><p>The parent who has legal custody. </p></li>
<li><p>The parent who claimed the child as a dependent on their tax return. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>As noted above, criteria 1 and 2 are used for determining the custodial parent, with the first criteria being primary.
For determining household size (the number of family members), criteria 3 is the most important. However, the student's custodial parent gets to list him or her even if the custodial parent does not provide more than half of the student's support. This leads to the anomalous situation where a student can be counted as belonging to two different households. For example, suppose the non-custodial parent remarries and has college-aged children of his own. If the non-custodial parent provides more than half of the student's support, he gets to list the student as a member of his household even though the custodial parent has also listed the student as a member of her household. (The IRS tax return instructions prevent this kind of double dipping on tax returns, but the FAFSA instructions apparently don't.)"</p>
<p>(From EasyAid.com, but you would want to verify with the Feds directly.)</p>
<p>If you are looking at private schools, most will require the profile which will include the income of all parents and step-parents.</p>
<p>It might be a good idea to have a discussion with both your parents regarding college costs -- they may not be aware of the costs and that you will likely not be eligible for any financial aid. It is better to know now that they will only pay a certain amount -- rather than find that our later, when it is too late to change your application strategy.</p>