How to determine "parent with the greater income and assets" for FAFSA?

Parents Forum
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FAFSA says:

If both parents provided an equal amount of financial support or if they don’t support you financially, the parent with the greater income and assets is the contributor and must provide their information.

It’s not so clear in my case. One parent has higher annual salary but little equity; and the other parent has lower salary but very high equity in a comparably valued house. There are also differences in retirement funds and/or trusts.

Should we just eyeball and wing it? Or go through some calculation? This is particularly difficult because this long after divorce we do not discuss personal financial details.

Say, for example, that one parent has $500k equity and makes $50k/yr; and the other has $50k equity and makes $100k/yr. Which has greater “income and assets” from FAFSA’s view?

Thanks.

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The parent who provided the most financial support to the student should fill out FAFSA. So, first question is did the parents provide an equal amount of financial support last year? You don’t get to the FAFSA guidance in your post if that’s not the case.

If they provided equal financial support, follow the directions that you posted and choose the parent with the higher income and assets. In your example that would be the parent with $50K income and $500K assets (I’m not sure what you mean when you write ‘equity’…you want total assets.) FAFSA doesn’t really give any more guidance than what you posted, so just be able to support the decision you make.

Note that the trust where your kid is a beneficiary (that you asked about in another thread) is attached to your kid, not the parent. So that will be on FAFSA regardless who the FAFSA contributor is.

Lastly, and I think you already know this, most CSS profile schools will require the financial info of both parents (and any new spouses.) Below is a link to the schools that use the CSS Profile. You can see which ones don’t require the non-custodial (that’s what they still call it) parent’s financial info in the appropriate field. https://profile.collegeboard.org/profile/ppi/participatinginstitutions.aspx

@kelsmom anything else?

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I believe the OP asked a similar question under their other account. Since Terms of Service prohibits multiple accounts, I am closing this thread

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