<p>I am asking if anyone knows if as a divorced parent, and the dicree states that the other parent is solely responsible for college financing, do I then have to contribute on the FAFSA? If he is trying to seek financial aid to help himself pay less, why am I involved? Since clearly he agrees to pay for college?</p>
<p>Divorce agreements have no relevance at all to FAFSA. If you are the custodial parent your data is required for FAFSA. If you do not provide it the student will be eligible for no federal aid including federal loans. If you are the non custodial parent then your data is not required on FAFSA.</p>
<p>You need to fill out the forms, but your divorce agreement should stand, so he would have to pay the whole EFC based on both of your income and assets. Colleges may look at your data, but if you have a contract that says he pays, you should be fine. Colleges don’t care where the money comes from.</p>
<p>What are the income requirements to be eligible for financial aid?</p>
<p>There are no specific “income requirements” to be eligible for financial aid. For need based aid…there is eligibility for federally funded money…and funding for institutional money. </p>
<p>Need based financial aid is determined using a formula that takes your income and assets (savings, cd/s etc) into consideration.</p>
<p>At some schools, the Profile or a school form is used in addition to the FAFSA, and that may also take your home equity into consideration to some degree. Profile schools also ask for custodial parent (and spouse) income and assets, as well as sometimes non-custodial parents (and spouse) income and assets.</p>
<p>For institutional funding, much depends on the cost of the school and the financial aid policies of that particular school.</p>
<p>Wow…so a parent making almost $200,000 a year is still eligible…things sure have changed since I was in school…</p>
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<p>I don’t “think” I said that.</p>
<p>Here is a rough rule of thumb. Your FAFSA EFC will be between about 1/4 to 1/3 of your gross income for the year. So…let’s use $100,000 as a guide. Your FAFSA EFC would be between $25,000 and $33,000 a year. Double that if your income is $200,000</p>
<p>Some VERY generous (and competitive schools) with very large endowments do offer generous need based aid for students whose family incomes are up to $150,000 a year…not a free ride, but need based aid. BUT remember, these are very expensive private schools with generous endowments and very good need based aid awards.</p>
<p>NO…most students whose parents have a family income of $200,000 a year will not be eligible for need based aid. They certainly will not be eligible for federally funded need based aid. They MIGHT be eligible for SOME need based aid if, say, they had three or four kids in college at the same time.</p>
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Probably not. Some of the more competitive and expensive schools do award aid to people with fairly high incomes but $200k is probably a little too high. The more generous schools require FAFSA and also CSSprofile. While FAFSA asks only for custodial parent data CSSprofile will often require both custodial and non custodial data. Schools that require CSS will generally use FAFSA data for awarding federal aid and CSS for awarding institutional aid (the schools own money).</p>
<p>Some schools require that FAFSA be completed for the student to be considered even for merit awards that are non need based.</p>
<p>Federal loans such as the Stafford require that FAFSA be completed even for non need based unsubsidized Stafford loans.</p>
<p>Completing FAFSA does not in any way obligate you to contribute anything to school. All it does is provide the schools with a number called the EFC with which they can determine the student’s eligibility for any federal aid. If you are the custodial parent this eligibility will be based solely on your income and assets and your son’s income/assets (if any). If you are the custodial parent and do not complete FAFSA then the student will lose eligibility for any federal aid including any Stafford loans.</p>
<p>Thank you to all who have given graciously there time and info to me.</p>