I am on SSDI and his older brother (22) is on SSI. My husband works for a school system and pays into a 403B instead of a 401K and on his paycheck it says he makes less than 50K. What are my sons chances of getting some help with paying for college?
His brother’s earnings of any kind won’t affect him and his dependent status on your taxes due to being disabled may help. If your husband makes voluntary contributions to the 403B they are added back as income. He would need to look for colleges that are very generous with need based aid. If he was accepted to an expensive school that provides a lot of need based aid you could pay very little but those schools tend to be hard to get into. There are lists on here and that you can find by searching of generous schools. You should also do the calculator on each schools website to see what the expected aid would be before he applies. Since your income asset situation sounds very straight forward the calculators should be pretty accurate.
It is impossible to answer your question without knowing more about your college bound son.
- What colleges is he looking at?
- What is his SAT or ACT scores and GPA?
He is looking at both state schools and a few private colleges. He wants to commute as he himself has disabilities and needs to be in a familiar surrounding. His GPA is 4.03, NHS student and his SAT’s will be waived due to disability.
I don’t know the answer to this…but his SATs are waived for admission. Does this mean they are also waived for merit award consideration?
@mom2collegekids how would Alabama deal with this for their guaranteed merit awards?
There is a net price calculator on each college website. You might want to use that to see what you het costs would be.
Well…the FAFSA instructions should help you.
You will list your husband’s income. You will NOT list his brother’s SSI. If your SSDI is not taxable, I don’t believe you list that either. Is that correct @twoinanddone ?
You count the folks who live with you as family members/dependents. So…you, your husband and your two kids (how old is the one on SSI?). You will not count the aunt and grandmother.
So family of four with one in college.
You family living arrangements, SSI and SSDI have no impact on you son getting need based or merit aid…we’ll…unless they are counted as income.
Does you son get any disability benefits? You mention elsewhere that he is waived from the SAT because of his disability.
On another thread, you say your kiddo wants to commute from home. What is the tuition cost of that school? How much will it cost for him to commute? Add in estimated costs for books.
How much can you pay annually?
Here is the issue. My son will be 18 when he attends college. He will be 17 when he applies. I am on SSDI. His older brother is on SSI. His grandmother who lives with us is on Social Security, his aunt who lives with us is on SSI and SSDI. My husband is the only breadwinner at 50,000 a year. Now, we do not claim my mother or sister as dependants, yet ( don’t even know if we can ) but we do help them as much as we can financially. We live in MA and we have no idea if any of this will help or hinder our son’s chance of getting some financial help. ANY suggestions would be helpful.
I don’t think they should count the older son in the household since he’s on disability as well. None of the other relatives count either. The family likely would not be able to show that they are paying for 51% of each of those other people’s support, since they all get disability and probably some sort of medicaid. More likely, those receiving disability checks and who live with this family, are paying “something” to the parents for “rent” or utilities, maybe food, etc.
Sounds like they want the college-bound son to commute, so they need a local college?
To answer Thumper1’s question, UA would require ACT/SAT scores for merit.
Commuting has its own challenges - attending a residential college would likely be safer, with all accomodations nearby.
In addition, depending on where you live, it may severely restrict his ability to apply to Colleges that’d be affordable.
The SAT is usually required for merit aid.
I would recommend he register for accomodations for the October SAT (to be done asap since it takes a while) and prepare as much as he can. Often, aid depends on good scores.
The double constraint of no SAT and restricted geographical area is a problem - expanding the area to residential colleges and having a sat score would help since your goal is financial aid.
However Clark university is test optional and is good with financial aid.
What’s his GPA?
Has he taken any AP class?
If expanding from ‘commutable’, is state wide ok? New England? Mid-Atlantic?
If not, where do you live and can you list 5? 10 ?colleges within a 30mn’s drive?
The older brother is 22…if they are providing more than 1/2 his support, they can count him, I believe.
@MYOS1634 they are from Massachusetts. GPA was over 4.0, I believe. No standardized test scores.
To the OP…it sounds like you need to find a school with good financial aid AND a good disabilities office that your student will be willing to access.
This is very true. He would probably get better aid (which is very needed) if he takes the SAT and expands geography.
The brother receives SSI and likely food stamps and medicaid. It would be nearly impossible for a family of modest means to be providing more than 50% of his support, particularly when their resources are already providing for their family of 3. They would have to demonstrate that they’re spending over a 1000 a month just on him alone. That’s not likely.