<p>This is from a Dear Colleague letter from the feds re: dependency overrides: </p>
<p>(aid officers have) the ability to make a documented determination of independence based upon “other unusual circumstances.”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>(There is a) body of practice within the financial aid profession for making dependency overrides that focuses on truly exceptional circumstances and consideration of individual cases, rather than contradicting the fundamental principles of financial aid need analysis or making de facto changes to the statutory dependency criteria as they are applied at individual schools. These practices include, for example, making dependency overrides in situations when a student’s parent cannot be located, or where an otherwise dependent student has been a victim of domestic violence and is no longer residing with his or her parents.</p>
<p>Pages 28 and 29 of the Department’s 2002-2003 Application and Verification Guide (AVG) emphasize the need to make dependency overrides only for students with unusual circumstances on a case-by-case basis and to document the unusual circumstances that the financial aid administrator relied upon in making the override. In recent years, the AVG has identified four conditions that, individually or in combination with one another, do not qualify as “unusual circumstances” or that do not merit a dependency override. Those circumstances are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Parents refusing to contribute to the student’s education;</li>
<li>Parents unwilling to provide information on the application or for verification;</li>
<li>Parents not claiming the students as a dependent for income tax purposes;</li>
<li>Student demonstrating total self-sufficiency.</li>
</ol>