<p>Any one have any experience with how finaid depts are allowed to handle student’s high income with no parent support. The student I am speaking with has one parent in jail and the other unable to provide anything, very low income.</p>
<p>The student earned $15-20k last year while in HS and this prevents her from having much in the way of need based aid; if that same salary were simply added to the parent income (which it is effectively replcaing) she may be eligible for some grants.</p>
<p>Are the finaid people allowed to make a professional judgement and adjust that?</p>
<p>Financial Aid officers can use professional judgment to make a dependency override-- and declare the student independent under certain circumstances:</p>
<p>[IFAP</a> - Dear Colleague Letter](<a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/GEN0307.html]IFAP”>http://ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/GEN0307.html)</p>
<p>Not sure if the circumstances you describe fit, though. Certainly worth a shot.</p>
<p>I can’t provide any specific help. This is a situation that requires someone who is an expert in fin aid and works with it to get involved. However, I will tell you that being considered independent for financial aid purposes is no panacea. The % of income considered for an independent student is high.</p>
<p>The thing I can see here, but a tax specialist needs to be consulted, is that the student is not only independent, but the parent is a dependent.</p>
<p>From what I have read I don’t see where it would be considered allowable for her to be independent- she is financially, but not FAFSA wise. Knowing all that, to me, it would feel fair to have her income added in to the parent total income and plugged into the formula that way, but that might not be allowed either.</p>
<p>Thanks for any ideas I can pass on</p>
<p>Simply put, for 15 K income for a student, fafsa gives an allowance of slightly over 3750 for the fafsa to be filed in Jan 09 (it was 3080 for this past year). 1/2 of income over that level gets added to the EFC. that means about 5500 for this person. </p>
<p>If she can prove she didn’t get ANY financial support from her parents and she had to provide her own food and shelter… then there may be a way for the FA office to consider that. But it that money was spent on her car or clothes, too bad…</p>
<p>Based on information from the Department of Education, self-sufficency isn’t a valid reason for overriding the dependency status of a student. I have had many students who made in excess of 30k per year that, by prior regulation, would have definately been made independent…but by current regulation had to remain dependent. It isn’t fair, but because many students and parents abused the dependency override rules in the past, it has ruined it for those students who are truly independent. </p>
<p>My recomendation would be to have your friend run their figures into the EFC calculation. I ran some figures and even if the student had 20k in income, if the parent had none, it was still a zero EFC. There may still be hope for your friend, depending on how much his/her parent made.</p>
<p>Thanks, Nikki, I’ll suggest she try. I was wondering whether as an adult who could attest to her life, it would be appropriate to write a letter on her behalf to the finaid dept. No sense bothering them if they have no leeway, but if they can do anything, I could certainly share the reality of what I have seen in her life.</p>