CSS Profile and Divorced Parents with Unequal Assets

srparent15
Wed, 02 Dec 2020 23:33:34 +0000

You can “seriously question my claim” or not, I don’t really care. I know people who do this all the time and I know if I wanted to hide any 529 money my kids had, it doesn’t take a genius to do so either. And yes, people who are financially savy do it ALL the time. For some dishonest folks, that’s their goal. To get all the free money from universities that they can. There are ways to “hide” assets legally, and then there are also the people who just don’t report assets and hope they don’t get caught which is a felony. Those people just hope they don’t get audited but when they do just say they forgot or made a mistake.

As for debt, credit card debt is not considered. A AFR loan might not be considered, a promissory note may not be considered. The nature of these loans due to the types that they are do not count. Most kinds of consumer debt are not included. So basically if someone owns 100k in stock but has 100k in credit card loans they are not offset as having a net of $0. It doesn’t make sense for the person to liquidate and have potential capital gains to pay off the credit card debt either and potentially leave them with no savings for a rainy day, or as we have now seen, a Covid emergency. All these people now in arrears with their rent, welp too bad for them that they owe that money. If someone has civil penalties due to a lawsuit or an IRS penalty or criminal restitution, same deal. It does not offset against any asset for Fafsa. So while they can owe millions, if they have any other assets, the assets are what count and the rest is ignored.

Two parents who are divorced, should never be lopped together and have their assets and income comingled in order to pay for a college education. It’s one thing if a CSS/Fafsa calculation wants to make a separate determination for each parent based on their respective assets/income/liabilities, etc. and then if one parent doesn’t want to pay his/her share that’s fine, but for my kid to be told he/she can’t get any aid or grants because someone they aren’t even related to makes 10x more income than either parent is a real problem. So, I wouldn’t exactly say that the parent in that scenario has the means to support a child’s higher education when it isn’t even their kid. Additionally, let’s not even forget that from day 1 these schools hit us and the students up for donations. And yes, there are parents all over the country refusing to pay for a child’s education. There are also tons of students taking on debt that they have no business taking on. That is not what the point is here. And where do schools get the extra money? You’re joking right? There are government grants and then we can’t forget as I just mentioned, the money they consistently hit us up for with their nonstop campaigning. And btw, there are parents all over the country who do refuse to pay for their kids college education. Ultimately these kids may just find it easier to become independent from their parents in order to qualify for aid.