Hi guys, i need help!
Let’s suppose someone were admitted into MIT and deferred to take gap year to travel the world, which would cost, let’s say, 30 000$.
To pay it, he does a paid internship and earns 40 000$.
However, as this is more than 6600$, it affects FAFSA and I don’t know how it affects need-based financial aid for MIT. How much of that earnings will be left for the gap year travel, and how much will go away into tuition cost?
If he spends all this money while travelling(e.g. for food, transport, acccomodation), will he receive the same financial aid as if he hadn’t ever earned it at all?
If you choose to enroll in 2021-2022 instead of 2020-2021, you will reapply for need based financial aid using income and tax year info from 2019.
The money you have in the bank the day you file your financial aid forms is the asset number used to calculate your need based aid.
2019 is just about over. So…you should have a really good idea of what your 2019 income actually is.
In terms of your assets, you are predicting them, as well as predicting how much you will actually earn and spend. This is all guess work.
ETA…any income you earn in 2020 will be reported on your 2022-2023 financial aid application forms. Money earned in 2021 will be reported on your 2023-2024 financial aid application forms…so your income for these two years has the potential to affect two years of your financial aid awards…depending on the amount you earn.
If you get accepted at MIT, with very sufficient aid to attend, is there some other reason why you would take a gap year?
The fafsa formula has 2 main components, income and assets. The income is from 2 years prior while the assets are current as of the filing date. Timing is everything.
In your scenario, you might earn the money in 2020, spend it in 2021, and file the FAFSA in 2021 to start school in 2022. Yes, the income will ‘show’ on the FAFSA (and MIT uses the CSS too) and yes, schools will most likely expect that $40k to be used in part to pay for your education if that’s the tax year used.
You could take a double gap, but at some point if you are earning $40k per year, you are going to be expected to use it for college and not for travel.
Yes, your income could affect your EFC and your financial aid. FAFSA’s student income formula will assess 1/2 of income over $6600 towards the student EFC and 20% of assets owned the day FAFSA is filed. Your 2019 income will be reported for the FAFSA for the 2021-22 school year. What you make next year, 2020 will be used for the 2022-2023 school year.
Any aid MIT offered you for the 2019-20 school year was based in part on your 2017 income. If you complete your gap year and start MIT next fall (2020-2021 school year) the financial aid will be based on 2018 parental and student incomes.
Income is income. I think that the balance after the $6600 allowance would be counted in the financial aid calculations. It’s not really the school’s problem if you blow it all on a trip to Europe.