A problem with the FAFSA?

Question

I was thinking ahead to when I will fill out my FAFSA in January, and I have a problem. It's highly unlikely I'll be able to go to college without financial aid. My mother, last year, made 20,000 dollars a year and brought home about 14,000 of it. My father (a shiftless layabout) doesn't work, but this year managed to get disability because he busted up his knee and shoulder while driving a motorcycle.

He gets a little over a thousand dollars a month, and as a dependent I receive $585. I've been saving my money for college and buying necessities (I tell you, the feeling of having new clothes for my last school year was EUPHORIA) and neither of us knows what he does with his.

On the FAFSA, will I have to average in that SSI money? I know full well (and he's said a number of times) that any money he receives won't help me with college at all. So I would be putting down money that in reality isn't going to do me any good at all, except make my EFC go up.

Moving out is not an option, either. I'm a year younger than most of my classmates, and I will be seventeen when I graduate. I'll turn eighteen in 2009, but only after I've started taking my college classes.

Is there any help out there?

Answer 1

If I were you, I'd start putting about 80% of that money in the bank and save it for college becasue once you turn 18 it will stop. Keep it as a backup if you don't qualify for scholarships or grants and dont want to take out loans.  Freshman and sophomores shouldn't take out loans anyway, too much of a risk of dropping out.

Moving out won't help.  You'll still have to report your parents info on your fafsa until you are 24 years old or married or have kids.

Answer 2

Yes, you have to put SSI on your FAFSA.

I sympathize with your situation, but it's required by the government until you are either 24, married, have kids, or serve in the military to use your parents income (and any supplemental income, such as food stamps or SSI) on your FAFSA.

You probably won't receive a Pell Grant, based on the information you gave, but I of course don't know all of the specifics, so definitely send it in anyways. Student loans are always an option. As a freshman dependent student, you qualify for $3500 subsidized loan (as long as your EFC isn't TOO high) which means the government pays the interest for you while you're in school, and $2000 additional unsubsidized loan, which the interest accrues on while you attend school and is added to the principal at the end.

Hope this helps!