Major Financial Aid Difficulty

kelsmom
Wed, 30 Oct 2013 09:15:35 +0000

From a recent Federal Student Aid (the authority) presentation, regarding the ability to borrow unsub loans if a dependent student submits a FAFSA without parent info:

A dependent student whose parents refuse to financially support him or her may be able to receive unsubsidized Stafford loans only
• Documentation required
Parents refuse to complete FAFSA
Parents do not, and will not, provide any financial support, including date support ended
If parents refuse to provide signed documentation you need 3rd party to document
Student statement not sufficient
Teacher, counselor, cleric, court document, etc

Refusal to support includes ALL support, even carrying the student on their health insurance. In my experience, the student would need the signed statements from the parent — if documentation from another source is acceptable, that generally means there is a greater issue at hand — and in such a case, it is more beneficial for the student to have a dependency override than just the ability to borrow unsub at a dependent student level. I say this because just a simple counselor statement saying the parents won’t help out is not going to be enough to document that the parents are refusing to assist in any way (including insurance, spending any time at home, etc), and there would be more at play if the reason was acceptable.