FAFSA for divorced and re-married parents

mom2collegekids
Mon, 02 Oct 2017 16:05:54 +0000

Parent 2 is the step parent.

Parent 1 is married to parent 2 (step parent)

In a stepparent situation, the “parents” on FAFSA are bio-parent and step-parent

The gist is that Parent 1 is not living alone and unmarried. FAFSA wants the household income and assets, which includes the step parent.

The reason that stepparent income is included is that Parent 1 is not the only one paying all the household bills if stepparent has an income. The calculation would be very wrong if only Parent 1’s income was used because it would be assuming that Parent 1 is paying all rent, utilities, food, expenses all by him/herself…and that’s not the case when the stepparent is also employed.

Even if the stepparent will not be helping pay for college, the fact that his income is helping with household costs, that means that Parent 1 would have more income to put towards college since that parent alone isn’t paying for all household expenses.