 Email this  Print this License or reprint this articleASK KIM How do colleges calculate the expected family contribution for financial aid when the parents are divorced? We share custody, alternating weeks with our son. I have remarried and I wonder whether my current wife's income and assets will be considered. Only the custodial parents' finances are considered for federal aid and most state aid. If you share custody, the parent who the student lived with the longest over the past year must submit the information. If the student lived with each parent equally, then the parent who provided more than half the child's support over the past year must submit the information, says Dan Madzelan of the Department of Education. If that parent has remarried, the step-parent's finances are included, too. So if you're considered the custodial parent, you'll need to fill out the federal aid forms with information from yourself and your current wife. Even if you are not considered the custodial parent, you may still need to submit financial information to some private colleges -– especially those that give out a lot of their own money, says Barry Simmons, director of the office of scholarships and financial aid for Virginia Tech, which follows federal aid rules. Each college may ask for different information. Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., for example, requires financial information from the non-custodial parent if the student was either claimed by that parent on their federal income tax return in the last two years, lived with the parent for more than six weeks in either of that last two years, or received more than $1,200 in support from the parent in each of the last two years, says David Myette, Champlain's director of financial aid. In this case, the aid office considers the income of the non-custodial parent (but not the step-parent) and half the non-custodial parent's assets (all of their assets if they haven't remarried). For more information about financial aid, see "Master the Financial Aid Process." | |
