@BelknapPoint First and foremost, The student should go with the parent with whom they lived with the most during the 12-month period ending on the application date (which isnt necessarily the custodial parent). And if the student lived with both parents equally they should go with the parent that provided more than 50% of their support.
In your proposed scenario, the student should go with the parent he/she resided with most.
The above answer is sort of clear. But let me add…for FAFSA purposes, the custodial parent is the parent with whom the child has resided greater than 50% of the time for the year prior to the date of filing the FAFSA.
“Custodial parent” named in divorce proceedings has nothing to do with financial aid forms. It’s all about where the student lived the most for financial aid.
As noted, if the kid really lived equally, then it is the parent who provided the most support. In some cases that would be the parent with the larger income. But in some cases that isn’t the case.
In cases where the parents are divorced, to get the lowest FAFSA EFC, it would be beneficial for the student to live with the lower income parent most. BUT caveat. This does not necessarily mean the student will receive more institutional need based aid from the college(s). That is totally dependent on the financial aid awarding policies of the college.
Even a student with a $0 EFC should not expect that all colleges will fully fund their college education. That’s just not true.
Right. In case you didn’t figure it out, I already knew the answer. Your language is confusing. You make it sound like in order to be considered the FAFSA custodial parent, a parent must both be the parent with whom the student lived the most over the past year and that same parent must have provided more than 50% of the student’s support.
You are mixing together two different FAFSA tests that are used to determine which parent is the FAFSA custodial parent. The first test to be used is the residency test. Only if the student spent an equal amount of time over the past year with each parent is the second test, the support test, used.
@BelknapPoint once again. Thank you for clarifying. And yes I knew that you knew I was answering it for others to see.
@TheFAFSAGuru, for schools like the Ivies that require the CSS Profile, why do they also need the FAFSA? Doesn’t the CSS Profile cover more information?