<p>I am still a junior, but I was looking into many different universities and noticed very little in the category of absentee parents. A lot of financial calculators call for both parents’ incomes, which I know, but nothing regarding their future contributions. Although one of my parents will heavily support my education, one will not, so I was wondering what I would have to do to get them to consider this fact because it does seem a bit odd.</p>
<p>Is this a non-custodial parent? Are your parents divorced? </p>
<p>FAFSA only colleges do NOT consider the non-custodial parent at all.</p>
<p>Some Profile schools do not require the non-custodial parent Profile form…at all. Of the school requires the non-custodial parent Profile, then it’s a safe bet that they are using that information to formulate a need based aid award.</p>
<p>Do you have contact with your “absentee parent”. Do you know where they reside? Do they pay child or spousal support (both will need to be included on your custodial parent FAFSA and Profile)?</p>
<p>If your parents are married but one just doesn’t want to pay…that won’t be considered at all by the college.</p>
<p>You will need to go to a FAFSA only college, or have a valid reason for the non-custodial parent’s income not be considered. A valid reason isn’t the he/she doesn’t want to pay. Many people are in your situation and colleges made a decision to require the financial information of both parents, especially at schools that award a lot of aid.</p>
<p>I thought you were a senior lol
Ask your parent why they don’t want to contribute.
Give them good reasons why their contribution is vital to you and your college dreams.
If that doesn’t work, I suggest looking for scholarships that will meet your need. </p>
<p>@thumper1
It is a bit of a mess. I believe my father can technically see me and have visitations, but recently child support and the like was reevaluated considering the fact that he now has me 0 percent of the time. I do not know if this constitutes custodial parentship, so I am a bit worried. I will be very close or already 18 by the time my Apps will be submitted though (seventh of December)</p>
<p>Ok, so your parents aren’t together.</p>
<p>Which schools are you looking at?</p>
<p>Schools that require info from both parents will want his info, otherwise they won’t give any aid.</p>
<p>If one parent could just say that he’s not contribution, then all parents would say that! </p>
<p>Tell us which schools you’re applying to.</p>
<p>The schools don’t care how much you see your father…unless child protective services or the police have forbidden that. Even then…they would still expect financial information in many cases.</p>
<p>It sounds like your dad has a lot of money. Is that the case? </p>
<p>Look for FAFSA only schools or Profile schools that do not require non-custodial parent information at all.</p>
<p>Or merit scholarships that you qualify for and low cost schools (see the sticky thread at the top of this section).</p>
<p>@thumper1
No, he makes less then my mother, but both of their incomes pre-tax is above 100k. My mom is forced to contribute heavily to a pension and the like, so adjusted income for her alone would most likely qualify me for some financial aid, but his income is what would skew this a bit. I honestly would love to attend a LAC, but it is just a little saddening that quite a few ask for both parents’ income, even on their theoretical financial calculators. Amherst is one of the only ones I have tried that actually asked about the second parents contribution, but my chances of getting in are slim to none, so it is irrelevant.</p>
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<p>Keep in mind that your parents are first in line when it comes to paying for your education. When you received federal state or institutional aid, it is through the generosity of other people’s parents; taxpayers, full freight paying parents, and alumni who give generously to their schools.</p>
<p>If you want to talk saddening, it starts at your house with your parent not wanting to contribute to his child’s education. If schools gave aid based on what parents want to pay vs. what the colleges believe that they could pay, students would be lined up saying that their parents don’t want to pay and I should receive aid. The good thing is you know this now and you will plan to attend schools where you can get sizable merit or will only look at your mom’s income and assets.</p>
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<p>Whose pension is your mom FORCED to contribute HEAVILY to? Hers?</p>
<p>^^ right, but it is still money that you don’t get to bring home. Required pension contributions are not added back in to income on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>“Forced” pension contributions are NOT usually a high %age of income.</p>
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<p>How much is the “forced pension” contribution? Is it more than $10k per year for the “forced” part? (and what we mean is…we’re not talking about contributions that your mom feels obligated to contributed to for her retirement…we mean the amount that her company absolutely requires her to contribute.)</p>
<p>Sounds like your mom would have a high EFC anyway with an income higher than $100k and with ONE adult in the family (the calculations are harsher when their is only 1 parent in the household). </p>
<p>Anyway, you have found out early that your dad’s income will be used at many of the best schools, so now you know those won’t work.</p>
<p>So, come up with a list that only uses your mom’s income.</p>
<p>ALSO…very important!</p>
<p>1) Find out how much your mom WILL pay each year towards college. (with her income, you may not qualify for as much as you think).</p>
<p>2) ONCE YOU KNOW how much your mom will pay each year…then identify 2-3 schools THAT YOU LIKE that will FOR SURE give you enough merit money so that your mom’s contribution can pay the REST of the costs.<br>
So, if your mom says that she can only pay $15k per year, then that would ONLY cover room, board, and books…SO, you would need a full tuition merit scholarship to cover the tuition portion. And you could take a small student loan to cover any small things that aren’t covered.</p>
<p>3) YOU can only borrow $5500 as a frosh, so you can’t borrow your way thru college to cover what parents won’t pay.</p>
<p>4) You can’t apply a merit scholarship to reduce your EFC. The ONLY way a merit scholarship can reduce your EFC is if the award is SO HUGE that it covers ALL of need and then the rest can reduce EFC. </p>
<p>So, if…</p>
<p>school costs $50k
EFC is $25k
mom can only pay $15k
You may wrongly think that getting a $10k per year scholarship will reduce the EFC to $15k…no it won’t. That $10k would get applied to the $50k cost. </p>
<p>But…if
school costs $40k
EFC is $25k
mom can only pay $15k
getting a $25k per year full tuition scholarship will reduce the amount that mom pays to $15k</p>
<p>MOST schools do not take into consider the financials of a non custodial parent which is the case with your father. But then, most schools don’t meet full need either. For schools that use FAFSA only, you would , for the most part, just include your mother’s info, but anything your father gives her or you towards support is supposed to be included as well. Like child support. And if dad does end up paying something, it gets included the next year.</p>
<p>But, most such schools don’t meet full need. You can have a big fat zero EFC, and not get enough money from the school to come close to paying its cost Very few schools meet full need, and those that guarantee to meet it, define that need with their own formulas, not need as defined by FAFSA EFC. And many of such school, that require PROFILE want both parent’s incomes and assets and take both into consideration even if one parent refuses to pay.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that a lot of parents refuse to pay when the numbers say they should be able to afford it. They want to spend their money otherwise or have taken on other financial commitments and they cannot or will not pay for college. In fact, if parents are not separated and one or both parents won’t pay what the formulas say they should then that’s a big problem for the student, and it happens all of the time. </p>
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<p>Truman State? University of Minnesota - Morris? Both are low cost (even for out-of-state students) public LACs.</p>
<p>Your parents combined income is $100k, or each one makes $100k? The higher the income, the less need based aid you can get. My husband and I have a combined income of just over $60k and will be full pay at most colleges unless our kids qualify for merit awards. We make too much to qualify for either Pell or the NYS Tuition grant, so we’re having to depend on savings, the federal student loan, and whatever money our kids can earn. Does your mom have any money put aside for you? Knowing what she can contribute every year is important. </p>
<p>As a general rule, most public schools ask only your household income, and most private schools also consider your non-(primary)custodian parent’s household income. </p>
<p>By “household income”, they mean parent + stepparent (if remarried). So most public schools, using FAFSA, would ask your mother’s income only (presuming she’s not remarried).</p>
<p>Most private schools, in contrast, use CSS Profile which includes information for both parents’ households, regardless of custody. That would mean, for example, if your father remarried they would consider your stepmother’s income as available to pay your college costs, even if he never sees you and she has never met you. Some exceptions I am aware of: Vanderbilt, Bucknell, and (just announced) Chicago no longer require non-custodial parent info.</p>
<p>In many ways, this is treating divorced parents exactly the same as an intact family. If you filed the FAFSA in an intact family and it calculated your EFC as $30k/yr, but your parents would only agree to provide $10k/year, that’s really no different than if they calculated divorced parents’ total EFC to be $30k/yr, one parent agrees he can afford to pay $10k and the other refuses to pay anything at all.</p>
<p>They want to make your parents feel responsible because they know that YOU are unlikely to have any money or income fresh out of HS. But legally, you will be an adult; your parents cannot be compelled to support you then, regardless of whether you attend college or not. There is a large amount of guilt-tripping to make parents feel responsible for paying exorbitant tuition rates, without the least admission of shame over the absurd prices and lack of any justification for those prices.</p>
<p>I strongly suspect that there is a small group of divorced parents who cooperate raising their children and who each do whatever they can, and a very large group of divorced parents who have been through many, many years of custody and support litigation and are now looking forward to the children being grown adults as their first opportunity to finally begin to recover economically.</p>
<p>If you get along well with your father, he’s probably perfectly willing to provide whatever information they ask, and whatever help for you that he can.</p>
<p>If you don’t get along with your father, does he have any motivation at all to provide you support when you’re 18? (If you want or need his help paying for your college, then you should really spend at least your late teen years doing everything you possibly can to cultivate a good relationship with him, including spending as much time as possible with him.)</p>
<p>Um…sort of. There are 3000 colleges in the U.S. I believe only 300 of them or so, use the Profile at all, and all of those do not use the NCP profile. But some use their own forms to collect financial info about NCP. There are MANY private colleges that do not use the Profile at all.</p>
<p>In contrast, there are three public universities that use the Profile…UNC-CH, UMich, and UVA. All of the other public universities are FAFSA only…and thus use only the custodial parent (and spouse if remarried).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that any spousal support and child support must be listed on the custodial parent FAFSA and Profile as well.</p>
<p>Actually, there are several other public schools that use the CSS Profile for custodial parents only. UVA, UNC, Michigan, UCSF, Georgia Tech, W&M… but they are definitely the exceptions among public schools.</p>
<p>Support must be entered, but they also ask when support reduces or ends, and whether any order or agreement provides for paying college costs. Support has pretty much no effect on CSS Profile schools that consider NCP - one parent doesn’t have it available, the other parent does have it available, it’s a wash. On FAFSA, it is (correctly) considered 100% available for spending on the student their first year, and so can significantly increase EFC and reduce need; but then have the opposite effect in years 2-4, reducing custodial parent’s available money and EFC, increasing need (presuming it has ended).</p>