<p>I’m not sure why people are having such a hard time with this.</p>
<p>We aren’t having a hard time believing what the current law/rule is. We are having a hard time accepting that the rule should exist. Why is that odd? Aren’t there any gov’t / rules/lawspolicies that you think should be changed?</p>
<p>If you look at the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch program - it only asks for income. Could care less about money in the bank. Conceivable a
parent could get laid off and have $1,000,000 in the bank and qualify.</p>
<p>True, but that would be very rare indeed, and would require that the money be held in some low-bearing interest rate so little income from it. </p>
<p>However, with a divorce rate of 50%, the OP’s case is not rare. Many divorced parents have contact and/or shared custody with their kids, yet the policy is to only include the income of one (often the much lower income parent.) That is silly.</p>
<p>I thought long and hard about asking her to do that. The reality is, I can afford to pay for our son’s college and so I will. Neither of us is filing a fafsa.</p>
<p>^^^
Because to do that would make a cumbersome program even more cumbersome. Maybe some kids get more of a break than others - I would hate to have a program in place that is so cumbersome that kids are being denied help who truly need it.
If you required every kid with a dead-beat parent to have to chase them down a lot would not get the aid. It’s not the kid’s fault the parents are divorced and the federal government really can’t be in the business of ascertaining the details of every relationship. Surely you have read the posts from kids who need an uncooperative parent’s info for the Profile.</p>
<p>BTW - it’s not like she is going to a $40,000/year college. She is going to an in-state college and is lucky to be in a state with low in-state tuition. I am sure her mom is already subsidizing her college costs via her state taxes.
Good for the OP for choosing inexpensive in-state colleges.</p>
<p>We crossed posted - but okay. swdad1 - I can live with that. If my ex-husband wrote a check for my kids I would not file either. If my kids had a trust fund they also would not have to file.
BTW - just because the OP <em>thinks</em> her mom can afford her college, doesn’t mean she can. Her mom runs a small business - even some successful ones can have a small profit margin. That really isn’t for us to judge.</p>
<p>Yeah… there’s just no large scale system that can be absolutely designed to measure all people in all circumstances in the most perfectly suited way. The important thing is for students and parents to follow the rules. Sometimes things work out a little one way in your favor, sometimes they don’t. We’ve all experienced both sides of that.</p>
<p>And, yeah, good for you, OP for choosing such a sensible and affordable option! Good luck to you.</p>
<p>If you required every kid with a dead-beat parent to have to chase them down a lot would not get the aid.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>What I’ve repeatedly have written is when both parents have been involved in the child’s life (such as shared custody) then both parents’ income should be included because there is no difference between that situation and when the parents are married.</p>
<p>There’s that list that divorced families use to determine whose income is used. There’s no reason why one of the line items couldn’t be…if both parents have shared custody and/or have contributed to upbringing of the child, then both incomes should be used.</p>
<p>Well, that would leave a situation very similar to having to a get a NCP waiver for the CSS Profile. The vast majority of non-custodial parents have “contributed to the upbringing of the child” at some point – either early on in the child’s life or through court ordered child support or splitting the cost of braces or whatever.</p>
<p>One could argue, I guess, that the FAFSA should be more like the Profile. Time to start calling your elected representatives then if that’s a cause worth taking on. The added personnel required to process all that is going to cost us as taxpayers a whole lot more than the occasionally lucky-but-perhaps-unwarranted $5000 Pell grant.</p>
<p>It all balances out. In this case, for example, since the OP (presumably) can file the FAFSA with her dad’s information, she gets a 0 EFC and probably a Pell grant, some loans, workstudy, etc.</p>
<p>Next year when she fills out the FAFSA she’ll have to report money her mom paid on her behalf. That will be considered untaxed income to the student and will actually be assessed far more severly than it would if it was considered her mother’s income or assets. So, this year she may benefit from the rules, next year she’ll be hit harder by them than really makes sense, given the situation.</p>
<p>You just can’t look at one little piece and get your back up about it without understanding the whole picture.</p>
<p>I get that you are frustrated by the system that you see as unfair. However, I am guessing that you have never been divorced. There is a big difference between being married and being divorced as far as finances (even those involving the kids) are concerned. I have no say in what my ex-husband does with his money. I can’t tell him to save or how much he needs to pony up for college. That’s at his discretion. I am not privy to any of his financial decisions because I am not his wife.</p>
<p>Also,shared custody and primary physical placement are two entirely different things. </p>
<p>My son’s father and I have joint custody but I have primary placement. The amount of child support I receive does not in any way cover what it costs to feed, clothe, pay for music lessons, sports involvment, the occasional movie etc. He’s my kid and I gladly pay for it. However, the cost of day to day living prevents me from being able to save large sums of money for college.</p>
<p>Maybe for some people the support does cover half the basics and then some for their kids. But from my experience that is rarely the case.</p>
<p>Additionally, the parent who does not have primary placement can choose to not pay child support and legally still have the right to be involved in their child’s life. Child support is not linked to visitation. Nor am I saying that it should be. Children do better when both parents are in their lives.</p>
<p>I’m happy for everyone who is in an intact marriage or who has a generous ex-husband/wife. That’s the ideal situation. Unfortunately, for a lot of people that isn’t the case.</p>
<p>For many kids I know the Pell grant and any other federal aid they get is all they have to pay for college.</p>
<p>If you did not live with one parent more than the other, answer only the questions about the parent who provided most of your financial support during the last 12 months. </p>
<p>It sounds like OP may be supported FINANCIALLY by her mom even if the TIME is split evenly between the two parents. </p>
<p>It may or may not be fair, but that is the rule (currently). </p>
<p>The challenge with bobbing and weaving through any system is when you get caught – and learn that the consequences are huge. Feel lucky? Maybe you’ll be the family that bobs and weaves and doesn’t pay what you should. But in this tight economy, I would think most financial aid officers are not going to be lazy. They know that there are tons of deserving kids out there and they don’t like the notion of their college being ripped off by a family who CAN contribute.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the input, everyone. “Technically”, I do spend more time with my dad. But I still feel like I’m gaming the system, something I’m not at all comfortable with. We’re going to go over the FAFSA again, and make sure we read all the rules to the T, and be sure we’re not doing anything wrong.</p>
<p>If you spend more time with your dad, then his is the information the FAFSA actually requires. If you follow the rules, you’re not “gaming” anything.</p>
<p>On the contrary, the term “gaming the rules” specifically refers to situations where no rules are broken. Instead, the rules are used to the greatest possible advantage.</p>
<p>The rules are clear. If the FAFSA wants information from the parent she spends most time with, and that parent is her father, then using her mother’s information is actually breaking the rules. It only goes one way: With which parent do you live most of the time? If there isn’t one (we saw a question like this here recently where a student actually lived in a house with both his divorced parents, so naturally there was not one he lived with more than the other) then the question is: Which parent contributes the most to your support?</p>
<p>The best thing to do --always-- is follow the instructions and answer questions honestly.</p>
<p>emily - all you have to do is answer each question honestly. period.<br>
Forget about all these people who are making assumptions about your integrity. Go forth, file the FAFSA with your Dad and forget this thread ever existed.</p>
<p>This is the quote from the FAFSA instructions:
</p>
<p>Folks - you are not the FAFSA police.
You may not like it, you may think it is not <em>fair</em> but please don’t accuse this lovely young woman of lying, cheating, breaking the rules, twisting the facts or illegal activity.</p>
<p>I wonder what the rationale is behind that rule. Does anyone know? Why wouldn’t FAFSA automatically include both parents if both have visitation rights?</p>
<p>Bay, I expect the policy reason behind the rule is to not punish non-custodial parents who do contribute. The thinking is this: on balance, society benefits more from having non-custodial parents stay in the picture than it would from having a more exact financial aid procedure. There are a lot of unspoken policy reasons behind things in the tax code as well.</p>
<p>So, there is this loophole. Congress (standing in for us who elect them) knows about the loophole and is keeping it open on purpose. If you don’t like it, don’t take it out on those who elect to benefit from the loophole, write your Congressional representative instead.</p>