@austinmshauri You’re right that the stepparent dilemma doesn’t really apply to us. But I still don’t think it’s reasonable for aid calculations to include the stepparent’s share to the same degree as the parents, particularly in my example of someone marrying another person with teenage children. The college would base aid on the biological parents income, and perhaps calculate a stepparents income at a lower rate of expected contribution.
I mention this because I know of a situation where a woman with a modest salary, three teenage daughters, and a deadbeat ex-husband, married an engineer with a salary somewhat above hers but less than six figures. In a situation like this, shouldering the responsibility of college expenses strikes me as an unfair burden on the stepparent. If colleges based the aid on the mother’s salary alone and a smaller portion on her husband’s, that would make more sense to me. In any case, this isn’t my situation but I wanted to clarify my thoughts.