Divorced Parents and FAFSA

mom2collegekids
Sun, 21 Dec 2014 20:14:56 +0000

@annoyingdad‌ I’m simply wondering why kids wouldn’t have at least peeked at the FA webpage of a desired school if FA is very much needed. It’s not an outrageous question or expectation. More so, you’d think that their parents would also have at least wondered…even if they never went to college themselves. I was a first gen applicant in my day, and finding out how college would get paid for before I even applied was first on the list.

@rkepp12 The NPCs won’t work for you because your parents are divorced. You need to talk to both sets of parents to find out how much they’ll contribute each year for college. The fact that your dad made a lot this last year likely will just mean that the school will assume that at least this one time, he’ll have extra money to help his his child’s education.

MIT is not known to be especially generous with divorced parents situations. I helped a first gen student last year (an AA male with great stats and Val of his class, who you’d think MIT would desperately want!), and his dad didn’t make a lot of money, and his custodial mom didn’t make a lot either, but the “family contribution” was determined and it was more than the two households could contribute.

How much will each household contribute?

I hope that you have some affordable back-up schools.