<p>I am posting this here instead of in Fin. Aid in hopes of well - informed responses. You guys are awesome.</p>
<p>I volunteer helping kids with college planning, FAFSA, etc.
Student lives with grandparent. G'parent is legal guardian. Both parents are living, but student has zero contact and has had no contact & living with g'parent since grade 7.</p>
<p>We contacted FAFSA and they said "This student has parents, but is not providing their information. Therefore any FAFSA filed with g'parent information would be fraudulent". Exceptions would be if g'parent were adoptive parent, or if student were ward of the state - according to FAFSA.</p>
<p>I was truly amazed at how unhelpful and unwilling to listen or answer questions the FAFSA folks were.</p>
<p>This student is amazingly hard working, has overcome incredible obstacles (failed 6th and 7th grade during family turmoil) and will be first generation to attend college. If student were able to complete FAFSA, I believe EFC would be zero.</p>
<p>Student has already been admitted to dream school with excellent scholarship, however not near enough to be able to afford attendance. I am trying to help student work with financial aid office to look into funding possibilities.</p>
<p>Question is: Is there anything we can do toward accessing Pell grant, SEOG, subsidized loan, work study, etc.???? This student would be fully eligible.
The student needs assistance to navigate these waters, however I am a parent volunteer in a huge title 1 HS with 500+ kids to counselor ratio.</p>
<p>Do any of you have either professional or personal expertise on what we could do to access more funds? (yes, he is applying for every outside scholarship that moves) I am talking with the college with the student to be sure they understand the situation. Is there anything else we can do?
Thanks</p>
<p>It is not something I have experience of but I think this is a situation where a financial aid officer could do a special circumstances override to allow the student to be considered independent for FAFSA in which case parents information is not required. There would probably have to be proof of the lack of contact from those that know the student well. Here is some more information.</p>
<p>I ran into a somewhat similar problem. My DH is terminally ill with a lengthy degenerative disease, and needs daily care. Our kids and others help so that I can work. Our FAFSA doesn't fully reflect the financial situation. Since last Fall I needed to get full time care for DH I wanted to see if there was a way of putting 2008 information into FAFSA so that last year's situation (which was already inaccurate) could be updated to show that this year I'm going to be paying for full-time care for him. FAFSA's answer...no. State University's financial aid office..."well, you can write a letter, but we believe that FAFSA accurately reflects a family's finances. If you are paying for care it will show up as a medical deduction. If you haven't paid for the care yet, then it will show up in next year's FAFSA." I did write a letter, and got a form response back that the information was considered but no adjustments were made.</p>
<p>This reaction is contrary to everything I expected based on the books, which recommend that you contact the school to tell them about a change of circumstances. I hope you have better luck with a letter to the school's financial aid office - you might even ask to meet with the Director of Financial Aid.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom has the best advice -- and it has worked in the past (last year we had a student asking for help with a parent in prison and a mother who was alive, but living on the streets.</p>
<p>First -- the people you really need to be contacting are in the FA office of the college the student plans to attend. contact them (and it sounds like you already have) and tell them that the student plans on submitting paperwork for special circumstances override due to the parental situation and ask what type of paperwork they require for this. Generally, the potential for abuse in this kind of situation is so great, they really don't like to do any special circumstances overrides -- my understanding is that schools who process overrides that shouldn't have been processed are subject to fines, so some won't do them.</p>
<p>They will require tons of proof for an override -- taxes since the student came to live with the grandparents showing they took her on as a dependent. letters from the school (including middle school -- you are trying to show this is ongoing for years) that grandparents are guardians, official letter of guardianship if they have one (which they should if they make medical and financial decisions for the student), proof that they paid for health insurance or are the legal decision maker for medical care, if the family recieves any subsidies from the state, proof that the state accepts the grandparents as guardians. Anything that shows that the grandparents have acted in the official (not just the emotional) role of the parents will help.</p>
<p>Then you need to show that no contact has been had with parents since early middle school -- again, letters from anyone that can testify to that. Any returned mail from when you tried to send them something? Ever tried to serve them with papers and they couldn't be found? Anything from the court (judgements, etc) where they couldn't be located?</p>
<p>hsmom is right, contact a prospective school's FA department- I have founf calling the FAFSA 800 # to completely pointless, I know more than they do, when the computer was popping up a confusion over the worksheets, i called in and the girl told me completely bogus info, I had to be moved up to a supervisor and he was barely helpful, she had been dead wrong.</p>
<p>Like calling the IRS where they do not guarantee their answers!! Call a private nearby school if you can, their offices have better staffing. Hopefully there is some legal paperwork- like dependent on tax returns of Gparents , etc to prove the validity of the claim. If they are the legal guardian then their info should be used!</p>
<p>******************** from a FAFSA info place******************
I live with my grandparents, who are my legal guardians. Should I use their income information on my financial aid application? </p>
<p>No. Effective since the 2002-03 FAFSA, the term "legal guardian" has been eliminated. The definition no longer allows the automatic inclusion of a legal guardian as parent. A student whose parents are deceased will be considered independent regardless of any legal guardianship. A student whose parents are living continues to file as a dependent student, but the FAFSA must reflect the financial information of the appropriate parent rather than that of a legal guardian, unless the financial aid administrator exercises professional judgment.</p>
<hr>
<p>The student and legal guardians need to contact the school ASAP - many a time they can work something out :)</p>
<p>Also what is the age of this student now - when they be 18??</p>
<p>My understanding is that filing FAFSA with the grandparent info is not even an option. The thing to ask the financial aid department of the college is a dependency override as I suggested in post #3. This would enable the student to file as an independent so just his financial information would be asked for.</p>
<p>SWIM - it depends on what type of legal guardianship is in existance - if it ward of the court type - then things get done a bit differently - but..... the guardians and the student need to be in touch with the school - to see what may work out best for this type of case - without a FAFSA the student is not eligable for any federal help/loans etc... but may still be eligable for school $$'s that don't require it. It all depends on the unique circumstances of this student.</p>
<p>If the student is/was a ward of the court before age 18 FAFSA already considers him independent and he is not required to file parent information. It is under one of the dependency questions - question 53.</p>
<p>
[quote]
53. Are (a) both of your parents deceased or (b) are you (or were you until age 18) a ward/dependent of the court?You should answer "Yes" if both of your parents are deceased and you don't have an adoptive parent. If both your parents are deceased but you have a legal guardian, you should still answer "Yes" to this question.</p>
<p>Answer "Yes" if you are currently a ward/dependent of the court or were a ward/dependent of the court until age 18.</p>
<p>You are not considered a ward/dependent of the court based solely on emancipation (when a child is released from the control of a parent or guardian) or incarceration.
[/quote]
In which case no special circumstances adjustment is required.</p>
<p>I did not get the impression from the OP that this was the case. If so it is all a lot simpler.</p>
<p>ORJR - I hope you have got some ideas from all the excellent and helpful posts here and will be able to help the student out - it sounds like he needs an advocate to go with him to his college financial aid department and help him out. Our personal experience with the financial aid department at our daughters school was that they were very willing to help as far as they could within the federal rules. Ours was a much simpler situation. Let us know what happens.</p>
<p>"I did write a letter, and got a form response back that the information was considered but no adjustments were made."</p>
<p>My wife underwent treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer, and I suffered a major heart attack. My d's college (Smith) bent over backwards to help us deal with college expenses - they were extraordinarily generous, beyond what we could ever have reasonably expected.</p>
<p>They will be getting donations from us for years to come.</p>
<p>Something like that happened to us as well MINI - when my son was senior in college - we parents both lost our jobs in the same week - the school was absolutely incredible to us - they really made us feel that they really wanted him to finish his senior year and graduate - and ended up being very generous to us as well.</p>
<p>It certainly sounds like the OP's student is very lucky to have someone looking out for their best interest - the job will get done - I have no doubt :)</p>
<p>This is the OP - just want to say thank you for the great advice and links. We have a phone appt. on Friday with the fin. aid director at the college to determine if they will consider a dependency override, and if so, what documentation they require. I'll keep you posted! Once more - thank you CC!</p>