Financial aid help: Divorced parents.

cptofthehouse
Sat, 03 Aug 2013 20:05:49 +0000

Read FAFSA definiton of custodial parent v-e-r-y carefully. It’s not whose address is listed. It’s not who claims you for taxes. It’s now who remembers your birthday or wants you around. It’s who you;ve lived with the most in a given time period before the FAFSA is filed. For federal aid ONLY the custodial parents and that parent’s spouse’s incomes are included, and if your dad pays child support to your mother, that would also be added to your mother and stepfather’s income. If your stepmother does not work, could be a a bit of a difference. Though for federal aid, it would probably amount to just a bit of PELL grant money, unsubsidized loans and work study.

For most schools that use PROFILE, both parents and steps have to complete the financials. However, usually there is a bit more of a break given to the non custodial parent in terms of what they expect that parent to contribute has been my experience. If you can sit down and get some numbers from everyone, you can run it both ways using a NPC from one of the schools on your list as well as the FAFSA EFC estimator and see what the difference is.