Reducing family income to increase financial aid award?

Well…they need to do this two years before their kid applies to college. And they need to hope their kid gets into one of the highly competitive colleges that meet full need for all accepted students.

This is not a good strategy, in my opinion. It takes the person out of the workforce in terms of future raises and longevity. They will need to remain unemployed for four years.

If they have savings significant enough to support their living expenses for four years, they might not qualify for need based aid anyway.