Daily Aid 59: The All FAFSA Mailbag

Student Financial Aid News

The 2009-2010 FAFSA is now available for filing. Get going by grabbing our free FAFSA eBook and getting your application in as soon as possible.

One note on the eBook, the FAFSA web application has absolutely no line numbers, which at least one person has said makes the guide a little harder. I’ve updated the eBook so that it includes the FAFSA on the web worksheets, which are the questions from the online application cross-referenced with the paper application. This should help some.

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Mailbag

Brooke writes in:

My dad is not a united states citizen, and I don’t want to get him in trouble. After 7 months of begging my dad finally filled out the fafsa, but we were asked to verify with tax information. He has not done his taxes in 3 years and owes his accountant a lot of money. So there is no way to verify my fafsa information. My dad is about to file for bankruptcy. Is there anyway to get help from the government with out fafsa verification?

Not really, no. Any kind of federal aid requires that you file the FAFSA. For the upcoming school year, a financial aid officer can execute professional judgement in a limited override to get you a small amount of Stafford loan aid, but everything else requires the FAFSA without exception.

Megan writes in:

I am 22 years old, will be turning 23 in July. I currently have financial aid. My single mother wishes to get married, and her fiancee makes decent money, but not enough to support my college tuition. Will her marriage affect my financial aid? Can she get married after my 23rd birthday (July) and it not affect me?

Once you turn 23, you do indeed become an independent student and then parental finances don’t apply at all. That said, any grant or scholarship money will probably be gone by then. Your best bet is to file now for the 2009-2010 school year before your mother gets married.

Joan writes in:

I am 24 years old. I will get married before filing the 2009-2010 FAFSA. If I lived at my parent’s house the whole 2998 year, can I still claim taxes as independent. Can they file me as dependent or they need to exclude me? Also, if they do exclude me, do their sporadic “money help” for my college mean that I was dependent? I would greatly appreciate your help! Thanks!

If you are 24 years old, you are already an independent student.

Laurie writes in:

Our 22-year-old daughter will be completing her bachelors degree in May and starting into a post-graduate program afterward. I realize the FAFSA will consider her independent, and that is fine. However, we could claim her as a dependent or not claim her (very borderline)on our tax return. Would one choice work better for her?

That’s a question for you and your accountant; how you file dependency with the IRS is different than how you file the FAFSA and the two agencies (ED and IRS) use very different definitions. Your best bet for tax stuff is to consult a qualified tax professional.

Nozomi writes in: Hi, I am 22 years old and have received my B.S. from a 4-year university. When I file my FAFSA for the 2009-2010 school year, I will be in a teachers’ credentialing program as a post-graduate. Does this make me eligible for independent status?

Yes, you are an independent automatically due to the nature of your graduate study program.

Christy writes in:

I have some questions about how to fill out my fafsa i live with my father who recieves social security benefits and i also get a check from his but that is our only income and we dont file tax’s. what do i do?

You should start filing your taxes, if only so that you have corroborating documentation for financial aid purposes that you don’t have significant income. I would strongly recommend doing your taxes before you file the FAFSA.

Joel writes in:

What counts as support? I live with my parents, but they do not offer any support for my tuition (they are in worse financial shape than I am). I work full-time, and make more than the $3400 overall limit.

Support for a dependent student is based on who you live with more than 50% of the year in the case of a divorce, or just who you live with. The trick in your situation will be the income protection allowance – you will take a hit for every dollar earned over the student allowance, which sounds like an unfortunate necessity from your comment.

Ron writes in:

I am trying to help a friend of mine’s daughter to apply for college financial aid. Her situation is unique as most are that post here it seems. I could not find any comments similar to her situation so I will go ahead and post even though I can almost guess what you are going to tell me just from reading the other posts. The girl is a Sr. in high school with very good grades and above average ACT. She currently lives at home but plans to move to the town where she plans to attend college in the Fall. Her Father was incarcerated in Nov. 2008 and is not expected to be released until several years after this girl will finish college so his financial contribution is zero. He did hawever have income in most of 2008 and supported the family entirely with his income–i.e. the Mother did not work in 2008. In fact, she is still unemployed and her prospects for a full time job are not real good as I write to you. She has taken in other people to help with rent and other expenses to help survive. The daughter and one of her brothers work in addition to going to high school and they both are required to pay a certain amount each payday to their mother to help out. She is applying for help from the Federal govt. programs (Food Stamps, etc.) but that is taking along time and that probably won’t be much $$ in the end.

So the situation is that when Fall comes and she moves away to college–she will support herself with work and financial aid help to attend school. How do you advise addressing the completion of the FAFSA application with the significant loss in income from 2008 going forward and how can I help this girl establish independent status so that a fair financial picture of her situation can be made? We are meeting with the college financial aid office next week–can you give me any tips to help me with her in those discussions? Thanks!! Look forward to hearing from you!

A few things. First, in the 2009-2010 FAFSA, the mother should indicate dislocated worker status which will help with some of the simplified needs tests for more aid. That’s in the parental section. For the father’s income, that will count against her but the school’s financial aid officer should be able, based on circumstances, to do a professional judgement override for future earnings and income, as this is definitely a different situation than normal. The faster the mother can get qualified for TANF or other programs, the better, as that will help with additional simplification of the FAFSA.