Non-custodial parents

TellETubE
Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:34:51 +0000

To the OP, I’d say that the 2 EFCs explanation is best.

If your mom makes around 60,000 and your non-custodial dad makes 120,000, it’s NOT the same as having married parents who make 180,000. After all, they have separate, respective living situations, bills, etc. to worry about. So it’s more like you calculate your mom’s expected contribution on her own and then your dad’s on his own and add them together.
I hope my situation helps clarify:
My custodial mom makes 100,000 and my non-custodial dad makes 50,000.
At Yale, they expect my mom to pay about 10% of her income (10,000) and my dad is expected to pay nothing (since he’s below the 60,000 threshold). Now if they were together, that’d be 150,000 combined so they’d be paying 15,000 instead of 10,000. So it comes out to be slightly better.
In your case, your mom may have to pay nothing or just a couple thousand. And your dad (assuming he makes 120,000) will pay around 12,000. So I think if you get into Harvard you’ll be expected to pay 12,000-13,000. Just my guess. Best of luck.