Michelle answers:

It seems like you might be confused about a couple of things, so let’s see if I can help.

First of all, the FAFSA isn’t your financial aid – the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is just an application form that you use to apply for aid.

The information that you submit on your FAFSA is sent to the US Department of Education, where all of those numbers are rolled into a big mathematical formula to determine your Expected Family Contribution, or EFC score. That EFC score gets sent to the financial aid office at your school, and it’s the financial aid office – right there at your college – that determines how much financial aid you are qualified for. “FAFSA” doesn’t give you anything – the financial aid department at your school, and the federal government’s student aid program are the ones responsible for providing your aid. Remember, FAFSA is just an application form.

Also, keep in mind that you are required to submit a new FAFSA for every year that you want to apply for financial aid. As a convenience, the website is set up to provide the opportunity to begin the “new” FAFSA each year with the same info that you entered the year before, but you are responsible for updating the information that you provide. You apply for aid in the early spring of every academic year – the FAFSA for 2009-2010 will be available online right around January 1st.

When you complete the FAFSA each year, you will answer questions about your income from the previous year. If you haven’t worked in the past, but you are working during the current year, you’ll report “income” on your FAFSA form next year, and that income will become part of the analysis of your financial aid need. Keep in mind that the government expects YOU to be primarily responsible for your educational expenses – so, if you have income, you are expected to put aside a good chunk of that income to pay your educational expenses.

That having been said – unless your job pays you a very large sum of money, chances are that your additional income will not have too much of an impact on the calculation of your Expected Family Contribution score for next year – and therefore, not much of an effect on the amount of aid that you are offered for next year.

If you are currently receiving any forms of “exceptional need” aid, like a Pell Grant or a Perkins loan, your income might make you ineligible or eligible for a smaller amount, but if your current aid comes in the form of a Stafford loan, it’s very unlikely that your income will affect the amount of money that you are eligible to borrow next year.

If you have questions about how your income might impact your aid eligibility, you should direct these questions to the financial aid department, because they can review all of the other information that goes into the calculation of your aid eligibility.

Good luck!

Michelle answers:

Are you a legal U.S. Citizen or a legal resident alien? If “yes,” you may submit a FAFSA for graduate school aid (not another bachelors.).

Michelle answers:

The federal student aid system is based on the premise that parents should pay for their childrens’ education to the best of their ability, as determined by a formula that is applied to all students who apply. Whether parents choose to do that or not is a personal choice, but it doesn’t change the underlying principle that they should.

The FAFSA recognizes that there are situations where having to provide parent information doesn’t make sense. That’s why they have the dependency questions on there (are you over the age of 24, married, supporting a dependent, in the military or a veteran, attending a graduate school, etc.). If you cannot answer yes to one of those questions, then you are considered a dependent student whose parent should contribute to your education. This is true even if you don’t live with your parent, aren’t supported by them, or aren’t claimed on their tax return. ( It seems like it would be particularly true in your case where you actually are being supported by your parent. ) Your parent’s income matters because it’s the only way to determine what his/her fair share should be.

Incidentally, income is not the only thing that affects your eligibility, and not all of the family income is included. The calculation also takes into consideration factors like the number in the household, the number in college, where you live, the amount of taxes you have to pay, the age of your parents, their assets, whether they pay or recieve child support, etc. It also recognizes that families need money to live on, so there are income protection amounts built in. For example, the first $6,000 of a student’s wages aren’t included in the calculation. For parents, the protected amount depends on their age because as they get older they need to save more for retirement. For example, for parents who are 50 years old, the first $46,600 of their income is protected. The same is true for assets: for students, only 20% is included and for the parent it’s only 12%.

Michelle answers:

Call them at 1-800-4FED-AID (1-800-433-3243) or 319-337-5665 they are open until 10pm tonight.