<p>My husband will start collecting SSI in a couple months when he turns 62. What we didn’t know when he applied is that our 16-yr old D will also receive monthly payments of about $750 until she is 18. My husband is self-employed and we have about $40,000 AGI, minimal equity in our house, and no other assets. Our D works part-time and so far this year has made about $2,000. I’m concerned that when we apply for FA in January 2007, our D’s income, plus her SSI payments, will greatly increase our EFC. Any advice?</p>
<p>did the SS office tell you that your daughter will receive payments?
that doesn’t sound right to me.
I also would suggest that unless your husband is disabled that he remain in the work for as long as possible.
Collecting retirement, as soon as he can, will result in lower benefits, as well as less money available for tuition.
Colleges don’t always make up the difference - besides if your house is a long way from being paid off- that would be a concern.
I am not a financial advisor, but it just seems common sense to get your house loan paid down as much as possible, before you start relying on social security.
<a href=“http://usgovinfo.about.com/blssaprimer.htm[/url]”>http://usgovinfo.about.com/blssaprimer.htm</a></p>
<p>EmeraldKity, thanks for your reply. Yes, my husband was told by the Social Security office that our D will receive payments. Minor children receive payments as well as the parent(s). I see your point about delaying SS, but my husband has had a severe decline in income since he had open heart surgery last year, and we need the income from SS. As a matter of fact, we just had to take out another mortgage to help pay our bills. Not the best situation.</p>
<p>well that bites- because when you calculate EFC, it will take into account your daughters portion of SS, although she won’t be recieving it while she is in college.
although I wonder, if then your husband would recieve that portion.
When my dad died when I was 17, I recieved social security monthly ( just a few hundred dollars, but it was a long time ago), while I was attending school. When I reached 20? the benefits were discontinued- but I think the money I had been recieving were then sent to my mother to use to care for my sibs who were minors</p>
<p>precollegemom,</p>
<p>the kicker is going to be that FA is calculated based on the previous year’s income and current assets. If your D is 16 and a rising junior, when she is a senior in 2007, her finanical aid will be based on income received in 2007 ($750 x12 = 9000) in addition to the income and assets of you and your spouse. </p>
<p>as you already know, financially you have a lot on your plate, so your D may have to cast a wide net as far as prospective colleges. Keep in mind that most schools do not meet 100% of your demonstrated need and those that do, many do not meet all of your need with grant/scholarship aid.</p>
<p>If she has stellar grades and scores, the ivies,stanford, Amherst, Williams, etc. although they are the most competitive from an admissions standpoint, almost all of them have low income initiatives in place for families making in the less than 60,000/year (check the policies at each school because some are only 40K0.</p>
<p>In addition your D should check out the questbridge scholars program @ <a href=“http://www.questbridge.org%5B/url%5D”>www.questbridge.org</a> . Questbridge has partnered with a number of schools and if she can get designated as a questbridge scholar or part of their college she can get close to a full ride at their partner schools, which can be found at :</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/students/partners.html[/url]”>http://www.questbridge.org/students/partners.html</a></p>
<p>D should also look at schools where she could be at the top of the pool for merit aid. Don’t eliminate the women’s colleges: Barnard, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr as not only are they supportive environments that empower women, but most give excellent need based FA including merit in aid. Smith has Stides, Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr both give leadership scholarships ranging from about 40,000 to 64,000.</p>
<p>I would also suggest seaching the parents forum for postings by curmedgeon, a parent who went through the merit process last year and came up with a wonder selection of schools that give merit aid.</p>
<p>I hope this helps, good luck to you and family</p>
<p>If Im not mistaken, monies from SS that your minor D receives will be treated as income to parents for FAFSA purposes. The money that your minor D receives from SS will be reported on relevant FAFSA parents worksheet A line, not the students worksheet A line. Although the SS money paid to daughter is reported to IRS as income to daughter, since your D will appear to earn less than 25K, the monies your D receives from SS will not subject to income tax and will probably not even have to be reported on 1040. (See IRS publication 915).</p>
<p>Emeraldkity made appoint about her mother having to use the money received from SS to care for her minor sibs. This is correct. The parent(s) who receive SS money for minor children are considered fiduciaries for the kids. Its the kids money but the parents might have to account to SS on how they spent the money for the support of the kids. The accounting is just a form that SS may require the parents to complete explaining how they spent the kids money on the kids.</p>
<p>Another caveat, my H’s Dad was on SSI/DIS and my H received a small amount of money during college. he also had a job on campus ( not sure if it was work study or not, that was a long time ago, but probably just a regular job)</p>
<p>FOUR YEARS after he graduated from university SS sent a letter with an order to garnish his wages because his campus job had earned him too much $ to allow him to have received his Dad’s disability portion! I do not recall the detials clearly except that it was way after the fact, as in we were married when they asked for the money back and I had not known him when he was in college & the SSI$ came in the early years of college, I think, so it felt very nasty…also the correspondence was very harsh, right from the start the first letter talked about garnishing…this was in the high interest rate 80s, a few months after we had maxed ourselves out on the purchase of our first home at extortionate interest rates, so the whole thing was a mess. I do not know how he would have known at the time that he could lose the qualification after the fact, but be sure to ask them how to avoid this type of situation!!</p>
<p>Hi somemom,</p>
<p>Those were the good ole days when students getting SS/SSI checkd during college. It is now a thing of the past. Unless the student is disabled all SSi/SS payments stop once the minor becomes 18 (then it goes to 19).</p>
<p>Your daughter’s ss payments will end before she begins college. The cut off now is age high school graduation. While the income will show on the relevant FAFSA line I found it helpful to remind the schools that the social security income ended in June and that it is a permanent decline in income.<br>
On merit aid I agree that Barnard in particular offers merit aid in addition to need based and my D’s aid there was substantially higher than the Ivies, Chicago, Northwestern.</p>