Impact that realized capital gains has on FAFSA

Capital gains will be income for you on your taxes. How much it effects your taxes depends on several things. For instance, if you qualify for an Auto-Zero EFC based on your mother’s income then it won’t effect it at all. If you don’t, student income is hit the hardest of anything on the FAFSA at 50%. But, there is an allowance of $6840 that is protected, so you can make that much in a year without it counting against you.

Here is the actual formula if you want to work through it yourself.

https://ifap.ed.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/2019-10/2021EFCFormulaGuideOct2019UpdateAttach.pdf

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