<p>My dad is an employee of the United Nations stationed abroad. I had very little contact with him for the past few years, and only in the last few months have I started talking again. Long story short, I was at Florida State, dropped out in the first few weeks to apply to private schools in the northeast, and went to look for my dad. </p>
<p>Again long story short, he wants to help me pay for university and apparently, he has always listed me as his dependent to his employer, which therefore apparently entitles him to an education grant of up to 36,000 dollars. At home in the US, my EFC is 0, my mother is unemployed and widowed from her second marriage. I finished my CSS profile before I talked with my dad. He still has to complete his non-custodial form (one of the reasons I came to see him)</p>
<p>Anyway, his grant is only applied retroactively, AFTER all and any governmental or institutional scholarships or grants and after he has paid what he has to pay or borrow ( as a sort of reimbursement ). From my experience with fsu however, I understand that financial aid packages based on need in the United States are recalculated whenever additional sources of aid are discovered or added.</p>
<p>Now, I don’t know how to explain this to financial aid offices, first because in order to receive this grant i would need their cooperation with filling out forms, but at the same time I don’t want existing need packages that I am sure I will receive (total family income with my dad included is only about 60-80k yearly, with my mother making only around 3000 last year because she lost her job) to be recalculated based on this money, because according to UN rules is technically NOT supposed to be considered as part of financial aid and I would very much like to keep it that way</p>