why is the age for an “independent” student 25? Both Hallgirls are completely self sufficient–have been for years, and even though the IRS knows they are self supporting, FAFSA has major difficulties with this. (Both are under 25.) Doing a FAFSA each year is a nightmare because I don’t claim them as dependents (haven’t for years), but FAFSA doesn’t seem to understand this. (I contribute NOTHING towards their education.)
FAFSA says that the college can do it so they’re considered independent, but the colleges says that it’s up to FAFSA and there’s nothing they can do.
They’ve tried to provided copies of leases for their apartments (in their names only), bank statements (which shows where their money is coming from–their jobs–and where it’s going–their expenses), tax returns, etc., but no go.
Why is it so difficult for FAFSA (and colleges) to understand that not every student is living on Mommy and Daddy’s dime?
The age is actually 24 for indepedence. My guess is that is the age that a student would come out of the millitary as a GI.
Here are the qualifiers for independence under the age of 24:
Married
Has a child that they support by at least 50%
Veteran of armed forces
Legal orphan or ward of the state
If they aren’t any of these they are a dependent student. The only way to get around that is to file a dependency override request, but that involves letters from clergy or school counselors, social workers, and everything. Most of the time, these are unsucessful because they don’t meet the actual requirements. You can check on this stuff but since you are still in friendly contact with your children, it doesn’t qualify. I tell my students that if you showed up to your parents house and they called the cops or would pull a gun, then you might have a chance.
The reason it is set up like that is because everyone that had a part time job that paid for an apartment would be trying to qualify for an independent status. There isn’t that much money available.
I have a 17 year old son applying to colleges. He’s in private school now, taking 3 AP courses and one honors course. He scores well on his SATs and got a 4 on his AP English exam. His GPA is a little on the low side, although he is working diligently on bringing it up and has so far made honor both terms this year.
He will be responsible for all his college tuition. What websites are good for scholarship info? Any “scams” to avoid?
What can a student do to minimize his or her expected contribution? My understanding is that more of their money is considered up for grabs than the parents’ money.
Also, why can’t one just waive the damn FAFSA when you know your need is going to be negative? Going through the process for the benefit of a few loans from the college seems like a big waste of time, mitigated only by the fact that the second through fourth years are much easier than the first.
My FAFSA EFC is 0, so all of my college costs are covered by the Pell grant, the Wisconsin Higher education grant, and unsub loans. I am currently attending a tech school(Milwaukee Area Tech College) taking college transfer credits until such time that I can manage my schedule to attend a 4 year college.
My question is this:
A private college I applied to a few years ago(Milwaukee School of Engineering) accepted me and gave me a 7000 a year scholarship, but the cost of attending is over 21,000(or was it 27,000?) a year. Would the government unsub loans have covered the remaining 14,000(20,000?) a year? I ended up not attending right out of HS because of scheduling concerns, but this question has always been in the back of my mind. I don’t know if there is a limit to the loans the gov’t would have provided…
You have to fill out the fafsa to certify legally that you are a citizen, you are this, you are that…
The reason you have to fill it out for Title 4 reasons are largely legal. If you lie about income stuff, it is on you. Regardless if the only loans you are eligible for are unsub, they are still Title 4 money and you are saying that you understand that you are required to pay back funds… blah blah blah.
AND if the student works somewhere, pays in federal witholding, they need to file their taxes properly. If they are a dependent to you and are making 15,000 on their own, expect that to play a big part of the EFC. If they are only making 2,500 then it doesn’t impact it as much.
The calculation the government does for EFC is not very linear, it has many many factors that go into it. If you round down trying to mess with the EFC, besides the fact that it is always caught, it could actually make it go higher.
Depends on what the CSS Profile is. We may but it is called something different. Financial Aid is based on the government generated ISIR which is fed into our system. As long as it is valid we process.
My first question is why aren’t you getting subsidized loans? These are the loans that have the interest paid on them. If you have a 0 EFC, not only would you be pell eligable, but it wouldn’t cover the cost of attendance so you should be able to borrow plenty of subsidized…
Now loan limits are different in different situations. You can borrow a total of 46,000 (23,000 subsidized) for an undergraduate degree. You may have to persue alternative loans to pay for more of them. Private colleges also have internal things you should look to pursue… I would recommend you speak with them about it. They work a bit differently.
I consolidated my loans (a great large hulking impressive amount of them) last year after I graduated from grad school and before the fabled interest hike. I just decided to do it through the gummint because I trust them (!) to be fair and kind more (!) than Sally Mae and the other companies, and didn’t do a lot of comparison shopping (magical thinking). Am I a chump, or was that a decent decision?
Thank you for this thread. Right now, I am applying for transfer from a community college to a traditional 4 year university. Because I already completed the first two years of my undergrad, I will only need to take 2 more years, possibly 3 if I double major. I am 24, I will be 25 in December and I have been supporting myself for about 5 years now. I made 16k last year, but that was working 40+ hours a week. When I go to my 4 year, I want to focus on schooling and not work anymore so I expect my income for the next 2-3 years to be nil. Right now I have a nice amount in savings, but I am planning to use that amount to support myself through the next semester of college without working in order to transfer on time. I have more in my savings than a lot people, but I have no one else to fall back on and I can not take 19+ units in difficult subjects and work full time. I expect my savings to be very little after this next semester of college, but I should know if I am accepted or not long before then.
I am looking at both private and public schools. The public schools run about 20k for everything and the private schools run about 60k for everything. I am hoping to get scholarships, but if I wasn’t able to get -any- (not likely but let’s just assume) what’s a ballpark figure for financial aid? How should I inform financial aid of my circumstances?
That is a fine thing to do. Sallie Mae is pretty trustworthy, most of the other banks are as well, but the government consolidation is fine. Actually, they are all about the same in “relative fineness.”
You can fine for an income adjustment through your financial aid office, but most likely this won’t fly. It is kind of the same as saying , “Well I needed a car, so I went out and bought an S-Class, the note is really expensive.”
There isn’t a huge housing issue here so I would suspect that you would most likely get your financial aid advisor to perhaps adjust your cost of attendance to reflect your current financial situation (see above on how that would enable you to get subsidized loans, vs unsub.)
That is a WAG though, I would have to look at your 1040 and some other income statements and how your FAFSA was processed by the government to give you a more concise answer. You advisor should be able to work this out and give you a better answer.
I will tell you one important thing: choosing to quit your job does not qualify you for an income reduction in almost all circumstances. Now getting divorced, getting laid off, having your company go in the preverbial other direction are all qualifiers of income reduction.
So prepare for that. Now as to what you might get from financial aid, there really is no good answer for that. You EFC relies on about 40 calculations, and then I would need to know how much you would be earning and what state you would be going in.
You are going to have to take out some loan money to definately go (in almost all likelyhood.) That is about the only thing I can say “for sure.” If you go the private university route, be prepared to take out some serious loans, from financial aid and private lenders. Private universities might have more internal scholarships though.
I would suggest that you look into a federal workstudy position. It is a form of financial aid that allows you to have a job of 20 hours a week at the college, usually not doing a whole lot but your homework. You get paid a rate per hour that is determined by the school.
What about death? If you die while owing money, do they go after your heirs? What if you had little to nothing to leave those heirs and the money would come out of the heirs’ pockets rather than your estate?
What about disability? say, you’re wiped out, unable to work, etc.?
What sort of family assets count toward family’s ability to contribute? Is home equity counted? i.e. would the family be expected to take out a home equity loan? what about retirement savings (401k, IRA etc.)?
Fear not, death is an acceptable excuse to default. At least as far as Stafford loans are concerned, which are the most frequent of student loans. I don’t think that they mess with disability, but I will check at work tomorrow to double check and if I am wrong I will post it.
As far as family assets go, most of them are counted, but they are inputed by the applicant on the FAFSA. So if you have 48,000 dollars in the family checking account and you tell the FAFSA you have it, it will be counted. If the ‘net worth’ of your business and farm operations are 175,000 and you enter it, that will be counted.
But, as I have said earlier, the FAFSA and goverment calculate your EFC with about 40 calculations, so everything is realitive. It pays to fill it out correctly.