Undocumented parents, help on Financial Aid

<p>I graduated on 2010 and attended college the following year. I only have my mom who works cleaning houses because she is undocumented. I had trouble doing my financial aid my first year by sending letters from my mom's boss helped me get financial aid for the low income. I am a us citizen. And the following year I tried doing the samething but this time they kept asking for more information and now I have missed two years of college I'm a straight A student I love school and I just want to grow up and be somebody! Any help on how I can do my FA? - Thank you</p>

<p>You need to sit down and have a long talk with your financial aid director at your school. It’s difficult to tell what the problem might be just from a post. However, the schools and FAFSA are becoming increasingly vigilent with crosschecking information with the IRS and if your mother does not file taxes that is something that might be a sticking point. Again, you need to bring your notifications and talk to the director. Make an appointment instead of trying to catch this person on the fly.</p>

<p>I tried talking to one of the advisors but when I told her about my situation she reacted in a way as if I could put my mom in a wrong position. Thanks though, I guess I can try going to the director.</p>

<p>Before you even begin brining up your mother’s situation, you just want to find out what the hang up is with your financial aid denial. There are reasons given for denial. You are not going to be turned down solely for having an illegal immigrant parent. However, the reason might be that you did not enter a social security number correctly–is there an error there or is it not checking out? Should the all zero digits be used? Are they asking for tax verification and no taxes were filed? Without saying that your mother is illegally here, these things can be addresses. She is not a citizen, she has no social security number, she did not have to file taxes because… If she is in a situation where she has to file taxes and did not, that has to be addressed. She does not have to be a citizen, nor does her status in this country get discussed, but even those here illegally, undocumented, without SSN have to do certain things. If it is something that does not have to be done, you have to say so. Maybe give a notarized statement so saying. You do have to address the matter. </p>

<p>An example: we got a request for additional info due to being selected for verification when my son wanted to get a Stafford DIrect unsubsidized loan. Now that loan is not dependent on ANY income figures. Any one who gets an EFC is so entitlted. But we had to submit a bunch of things when selected for verification including our tax returns and explain that our son did not file a tax return because they had asked for his. We sent a statement that our son did not file a tax return that requested year because he did not earn enough money that he was so required. Had they required verification of that , we would have sent his W-2 from his summer job with a statement that this was his total earnings as reported on FAFSA and is below the thresh hold for IRS reporting and that he is also a dependent on our tax return. </p>

<p>I don’t know what the hang up is with your financial aid situation, and neither do you. You should not be telling anyone anything at first. You need to know what the hang up is and how to address it. If you start out with your mother’s illegal status, you are on a whole other subject, not on your financial aid. Her status will having nothing to do with your aid, by the way. She could be in Outer Siberia and if you are a US citizen, you are still eligible for aid. But if she is making any income, or has assets or has a social security number or some other things, she has to report those.</p>