How much can a student earn before it negatively affects financial aid?
And is that true after he/she passes the 2-year lookback period?
Thanks!
It depends. You can always plug numbers into an EFC calculator to see the effects of various student income scenarios.
Use FAFSA for calculating federal aid like Pell grants.
For a student that only qualifies for student loans, no need based aid, and was awarded merit aid it doesn’t matter.
For colleges that meet need or provide some need based aid, you can plug numbers into their net price calculators to estimate.
Thanks. I had done that, and one of the schools showed no impact, even when I raised the student income to 20k (which is not going to happen). That’s why I had wondered if there is a rule of some sort. I had heard about the approximate 6k cap on student income, but since my calculations weren’t bearing that out, I thought maybe I was missing something.
A lot also depends on your parent income. I’m sure @kelsmom will correct me if I’m wrong…but if you qualify for an auto $0 EFC on FAFSA, I believe student income isn’t counted at all.
That’s correct.
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That’s good to know, but doesn’t apply here. We are not 0 EFC.