<p>I was curious how the numbers would work out and now that I’ve done my D’s FAFSA it’s become clear.</p>
<p>I was a stay-at-mom until last year. The first two years the kids went to college (both sophomores now) our financial aid applications were based on just my husband’s income which is a middle class income. (Actual middle class --around 58K for a family of four-- not CC “middle class.”)</p>
<p>In 2009 I went back to work part-time and worked for 6 months. I made just a little over $6000., and husband’s income went up slightly to $59K.</p>
<p>The FAFSA for the 2010-11 academic year has now generated a higher EFC by about 788 for each kid. They were eligible in past years for a partial Pell amounting to about $1400 for each one. Now they’re ineligible because they’ve bobbed just above the qualifiying EFC for any Pell.</p>
<p>Based on the two lost Pell grants and the higher EFC generated by my part-time income our net gain from my job over last year is just under $2000 - before taxes.</p>
<p>It’s okay because I needed to get back into the workforce and start functioning in that world again, getting more recent job experience, etc. But, if any other stay-at-home moms are thinking about the effects of that additional income on their financial aid… well, everyone’s numbers will crunch a little differently, but it is certainly something to consider.</p>
<p>I’m curious about what colleges think if you don’t go back to work though. Even when you have been home for 18+ years will they look down on you or somehow inpune income if you do not go back to work?</p>
<p>Colleges just look at what is. It would be impossible for them to understand why some people work, why they can’t, how many hours they work or what kind of wage they should be getting. It would be so utterly subjective that it’s impossible to do. What if someone has an elderly parent they take care of, what if they don’t have the skills to get a job, what about the incredibly terrible job market right now?</p>
<p>What colleges look at --and what they should be looking at-- is what resources are available to the student to pay for school… not what resources they think should be available.</p>
<p>If you go to an EFC calculator & enter just your husband’s numbers … then you do it with the info for both of you … I would bet that you end up with roughly the same EFC both times. This is because there is an allowance for 2 parent wage earners that you do not get for one. When I have played around with the EFC calculator in the past, I found that the EFC is about the same for the first approximately $10,000 of the second wage earner’s earnings.</p>
<p>Great topic! I have a question about the “new” income of a parent going back to work. What are the threshholds of income that define levels of financial need? Judging from 'rentof2’s post, one must be around $60K since they lost their Pell grant.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to establish levels, because there are so many elements that contribute to the EFC. Family size, number in college, age of older parent, AGI, taxes paid, earned income, assets. I am sometimes surprised when I finish a verification & find that the EFC is higher or lower than I figured it would be.</p>
<p>I just did ran it on the Finaid calculator with both our incomes and with just my husband’s, and it went well down below Pell-eligible with just my husbands. When I added in my $6300 income it went up by 800 and out of Pell-range.</p>
<p>Everything else was identical.</p>
<p>I have heard here on CC before that a second income (a part-time low income) would not be penalized on the FAFSA, but I just have not found that to be true. It certainly is not true for us.</p>
<p>PhotoOp: Not in my experience. Schools have never asked me why I wasn’t making as much as they might imagine I should, or tried to base aid on my earning power. I am attending school full time, and that’s that. There is, however, a place on the FA verification forms to explain 'If your AGI was less than X, please explain how you supported yourself and your dependents." I do that, and then we’re done. I sometimes wonder if they’re looking for admission of hidden income from people who have it? I have no idea.</p>
<p>What a bummer. There is really no way to predict how your earnings will impact things, I guess. </p>
<p>I know that in my case, I felt that it was worthwhile to return to work. For me, any income was better than none. We didn’t qualify for any need based federal aid other than loans, though. I was really glad I went back to work when I did, because our area got hit with the nation’s highest unemployment right after I got my job.</p>
<p>TrinSF, that question is so that schools have documentation of how you survive on so little income. It’s required for an audit. There is usually some info gathered that makes it all make sense … for example, the family stays with relatives, or has subsidized housing & food benefits … or the parent supports the family with refunds from student loans … whatever is the case. If everything is still 0, there needs to be some explanation. If the family lives in a shelter, that is an explanation.</p>
<p>Kelsmom: Yup. In my case, I explain that I live with a partner, I had worker’s comp/disability payments, and there’s also the modest child support, etc. But there’s no one who writes back to say, “Based on how you explained this, we demand you drop out of school and get a job, you shiftless mother, you!” :-)</p>
<p>Kelsmom, returning to work isn’t something I regret. It’s true that purely from an economic snapshot of our current situation, it probably isn’t a net gain for us. We get a small bump in income, we lose financial aid… once you factor in commuting costs, having to have “office clothes” and other related expenses, it’s probably not worth it. Yeah, we may come out with … I don’t know… maybe $1600 net gain. For six months of work that works out to something like $1.85/hr benefit for my efforts.</p>
<p>However, I don’t regret it. I did want to get back in a job, I like the job I have, and I hope it helps build to other even better opportunities. The job market sucks, and that fact that I have a job that I mostly enjoy with nice people is a good thing all by itself.</p>
<p>But if I was a stay-at-home mom with a newly emptied-nest right now, and our financial aid situation was stable and do-able, I would not go out and look for a job just for its own sake, and I certainly wouldn’t take on a job I didn’t like or didn’t care about because the trading off of financial aid for a very marginal income increase would just not be worth it.</p>