Are the authors the FAFSA of living under a rock? There is a population of people who adopted children as a single parent and are not married. And there was an organization I saw called “single mothers by choice.” The kids do not and have never legally had a second parent. FAFSA apparently never encountered this. The only choices in the FAFSA drop down are married, married: living apart, never married: living together, never married: living apart and widowed. Common Application has a designation for “unknown” for the second parent. What is an always single parent supposed to claim? Never married:living apart implies there was once a relationship and that second parent might have some assets to put toward college. Widowed would be more accurate and fair yet not true. I know a single man who adopted a physically challenged, smart college bound child. What are they supposed to answer?
There is an option for single parents; Never Married
2015-2016 FAFSA; See Question 59
https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1516/pdf/PdfFafsa15-16.pdf
the first box is never married
As one of these parents, this categorization is the least of my worries. I have much more issue with the tax credits for singles being limited to those making $80-90k or less no matter how many children you have in college, while a married couple with only one spouse working and one child in college can make up to $160k-180k and still get the credit. So for my family of 3 with both kids in college I can only make $80k to get the full tax credit, but the guy sitting next to me can make up to $160k and get the entire tax credit. Two people, same job, same number of dependents, different tax benefits. If our kids go to the same school, I don’t pay less in tuition because I have two in school and make the same as the guy next to me with only one in school. I pay double, don’t get the tax credit, and he pays for one and does.
NOT FAIR.
I do know people who were mighty perturbed that they had to fill out a NCP form when there wasn’t really a NCP at all. Some schools, and maybe the CSS, are now catching on.
When filling out a registration form for the school district, the choices for parental relationship were: Natural mother, step mother, foster parent or guardian, or (there was one more I can’t remember, but it didn’t apply either). DD was filling out the form and even she knew that none of those choices was correct. I told her it didn’t matter, and I was right, it didn’t. In three years no one ever called or asked for an explanation on why nothing was checked.
I’m one of those parents, too. We didn’t fill out a NCP form, because there isn’t such a person (no NCP). For profile, we sent in a letter to each college from our sperm bank which said the kids were conceived using an anonymous donor. All the half-sibs in our donor-family group also did this without difficulty, and none of the colleges requested further information.