The FAFSA now uses income from your tax return only. But “income” isn’t just your wages or your Adjusted Gross Income. It’s all the income on your tax return, whether you pay taxes on it or not. Good news: starting with the 2024-25 school year, the FAFSA no longer considers income that isn’t on your tax return, such as payroll…
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Financial Aid
There’s a ton of talk about the FAFSA right now, which on the one hand makes sense because it will be available next week. (Yes, all evidence to the contrary, time does continue marching forward with the result that Oct. 1 arrives next week.) But all the hoopla around the FAFSA tends to obscure the fact that the FAFSA itself…
Students whose parents are divorced have some planning opportunities if the exes are willing to cooperate. The first step is of course to understand the planning areas. And the first step of that first step is to understand a key definition: “custodial parent.” Custodial parent is used in two primary places for college purposes, and in ways that are completely…
Are you looking for the 2022-23 FAFSA’s EFC Formula Guide? Go here if so. The FAFSA won’t be available until Oct. 1 but in the meantime you can download the EFC Formula Guide for the current year and calculate your Expected Family Contribution. This year’s FAFSA EFC formula includes nominal inflation-related adjustments to the Income Protection Allowance, Adjusted Net Worth…
I write a lot about the FAFSA, but there’s a second financial aid form that’s also important: the CSS Profile. While all schools use the FAFSA to allocate federal funds such as Direct Student Loans, a subset of schools– primarily private schools– use the CSS Profile in their financial aid calculations. There are a few key differences between the two…