<p>I have around $17,000 in my savings and bank account. If i put this down on the fafsa form will i be denied any grants. I am a dependent and using my fathers tax information. Im not sure how all this works. Is it possible to just leave my bank and savings blank and they won’t check it? Or am i better off Emptying my accounts before filling the fafsa out? Or will my savings not affect my chances of getting a grant? Any advice or ideas are greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Don’t lie, it’s illegal.</p>
<p>FAFSA counts 20% of a student’s assets, and only 5.6% of parents’ assets, towards your EFC. Your best bet is to gift it to your parents, this will lower your EFC by over $2400. </p>
<p>If you do leave it in your name, spend all your money your first year before spending any of your parents’ money. This will maximize your aid in years 2-4.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean by “emptying my accounts”, what are you going to do with it, put cash under your mattress? You’d still have to report it.</p>
<p>Whether you can get grants or not depends on a lot of other information like your parents’ income and assets, the cost of the school, how much of your need the school meets, etc. Having money in your own name certainly doesn’t prevent you from getting grants, they just might be a little smaller.</p>
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<p>Actually, no choice. You MUST put this down on your FAFSA. It’s fraud not to do so. The only way to NOT declare this money is to spend it. If you simply “remove” it from your account but still have the cash, you must still declare it as an asset as CASH is an asset. </p>
<p>I would suggest that you transfer this money into your parents’ names before filing the FAFSA. You would have to check with someone regarding “gifting” this to them. There are limits to the amount one can “gift” to someone else in a year. Still as noted above, the parents have some asset protection which you do not have as a student. In addition, the amount assessed for the parents is significantly LESS than for the students</p>
<p>From fafsa.ed.gov:</p>
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<p>I never shout online but DO NOT LIE ON YOUR FAFSA! Schools do random verifications on at least a third of the applications every year and it is quite easy to spot what your are suggesting. The penalty for fraud would be loss of you student aid, possible jail time, and you would not even be allowed to take Stafford loans in the future. Definitely not worth the risk, there are other strategies much more effective. Here’s a place to start:
[FinAid</a> | Financial Aid Applications | Maximizing Your Aid Eligibility](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/maximize.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/maximize.phtml)</p>
<p>One other thing to consider. You should be very grateful you HAVE that $17K a portion of which will be used for college costs each year. </p>
<p>Is your family otherwise VERY poor? I’m not the expert here on the simplified needs test, but if your family has very low income, you are not required to list your assets (I believe that includes student assets, but someone more versed in this would have to chime in with the accurate information).</p>
<p>The IRS gift limit is $13,000/year, so that’s the maximum that one person can give to another without the recipient incurring gift taxes (some exceptions apply).</p>
<p>No need to gift the money to anyone. If you’re going to spend it on your education, then open a student-owned 529 account in your state’s plan. This instantly changes the assessment of your asset from 20% to 5.6% for FAFSA. If your state’s plan isn’t attractive, check out other states’ plans. There are many to choose from; find the one with the lowest fees by doing some research online. The 529 investment is typically age-based, which means that most of the money will be equivalent to cash and so you’ll get similar if not better returns than in your savings account.</p>
<p>OP: At our college info night last Fall, the head of guidance related that a student at our high school some years back had lied about something similar on the FAFSA (actually, his parents lied since it is more likely that they filled it out) and it was discovered in late May and his acceptance was withdrawn from the college and his parents had to pay a multi-thousand-$$ fine. Apparanetly since the FAFSA folks work for the same boss as the IRS folks and Federal Banking folks, it’s not that hard for them to spot the fact that you withdrew $17000 on December 31st, and then did your FAFSA. Unless you can point to a massive car crash repair bill or get someone to testify that you have a $1000/day coke habit, I think you’re safer doing as advised above.</p>
<p>Just sayin’…</p>
<p>By the way, great link sk8rmom. Wish’t I had it last summer. ;-)</p>