I have a student who is beginning the process of applying to college. He’s a first-generation American with only a foggy idea of how the process works, and I am trying to help him as best I might. I have been reading the FAFSA website, and have not been able to come up with an answer to this question.
My student lives with his mother. He has no contact with his father, who does pay child support, although that will end halfway through his senior year… Near as I can tell from this PDF , ( page 15) only his mom’s income will be considered on the application. However, on that same page it states that if he has a stepparent, that person’s income is included. Now then, my student’s mother is technically married (in the process of divorcing–there is an extended court battle), but her husband left over two years ago and has not contributed anything to the household during that time.
So my questions are:
One: Does he have to include that stepparent’s income?
Two: Can he appeal it, if so? The PDF says you can appeal your dependency status as a whole, but that is not the question here–he is dependent, just not on the man his mother is technically married to.
Three: If you can appeal it, do you have to do so seperately at each school you apply to? The government PDF says that you appeal to your “aid administrator”, and near as I can tell you have a different one at each school. I don’t understand how that works, and frankly, I don’t trust our school’s conselors to give me the straight dope.
Part of the issue here is that this is an extremely strong student, and he has aspirations towards some prestigious private schools. Since they also use the FAFSA to determine the aid package they offer, it is important that the information on it accuratly reflect his actual finacial situation.