meets 100% need schools

thumper1
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 01:23:52 +0000

1. It’s your total family income that matters. It doesn’t matter if one parent earns it...or both.

2. If you aren’t working and don’t have income, no one will care if you took an early retirement or not. BUT if there is a financial buyout in the form of severance, that will be considered income in the year received.

Also, if you start to collect a pension, that is also considered income.

1. Additional income usually reduces your financial need. BUT it’s hard to say what that means for you. For example, at some colleges, all students with incomes below a certain amount get free tuition. If your additional income doesn’t go above that threshold, there would be no change in your aid. OTOH, if your income goes above a certain threshold at some schools, this could trigger loans in your financial aid package when previously that was not the case.

So much if this varies by college.

You could try running the net price calculator with all these different scenarios to see the dollar differences. It will only be an estimate, however…and a very gross one…but an idea anyway.

Remember also that your aid forms use prior prior tax year info.

So for 2020-2021 the tax year will be 2018. That’s all done!

For 2021-2022 the tax year will be 2019. That’s this year.

And for your kid’s senior year…2022-2023, the 2020 tax year will be used.

I will say…I am a retired public school educator…and I did not stop working until one year after my youngest kid finished college. We needed the income.