Change in Marital Status

When the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is filled out, students and parents list their current marital status. This has several ramifications in how it can affect the need analysis formula, even though it sounds like a simple enough question. Financial aid officers often find themselves talking to families about marital status questions and whose incomes should be reported on the application, as well as which people should be counted as part of the household during the school year. Some of the types of common situations that occur can be discussed here.

If parents are separated or divorced at the time the FAFSA is filed, list the income and household size for just the one parent the student lived with the most during the last 12 months. If the student lived with neither parent, list information for the one parent who provided the most financial support during the last 12 months. If child support was paid by the other parent, there is a special place to report that amount on the FAFSA.

If a parent has remarried, the stepparent is a part of the household size and also must include his/her income on the student's financial aid application.

If parents become separated or divorced after the FAFSA was filed, the family may request a review of their special circumstances by completing a Special Condition Form, which is a way of reporting a drastic change in the family's situation causing a major reduction in income.

If the student is planning to get married, careful consideration should be given in deciding whether to file the financial aid application before or after the wedding date. A student cannot put a future date on the application because they plan to be married by that date. Students also cannot re-file an application to update their status to married (even though they can do a Special Condition Form to report a separation or divorce that occurred after the original date of filing). It is probably well worth the student's time to make an appointment with a financial aid counselor to discuss their marriage plans and the affect on student aid in detail. Financial aid counselors can often do need analysis estimates to show the difference in aid eligibility by filing before or after the marriage date. Here are some of the reasons it makes a big difference:

• Once a student is married, he/she is "independent" on the aid application.
  
• Married students must report spouse's income, even if they were single and filed tax returns separately the prior year.
  
• Sometimes the wedding date occurs late enough in the year, that by waiting to file as married the student has missed the preferred filing deadline for some of the Federal student aid programs and funds are already exhausted. Two programs, Pell Grant and Stafford Loan, are available all year, though.
  
• In some cases, the student should not wait to file as married and risk filing a late aid application, because they could file as dependent with the parents' income information and still be eligible for the aid programs they have always received. Attaining independent status does not always mean qualifying for more dollars in student assistance.