FAFSA question: injury settlement

[AbcdeDooDah]

I'm filling out my FAFSA and it asks for bank account, including spouse. If he has a sum of money that is a  work injury settlement, do I need to include that? Legally, it does not belong to me.

[katilac]

18 minutes ago, AbcdeDooDah said:

I'm filling out my FAFSA and it asks for bank account, including spouse. If he has a sum of money that is a  work injury settlement, do I need to include that? Legally, it does not belong to me.

It is the bank accounts of both custodial parents, including step-parents. 

[Pippen]

10 minutes ago, katilac said:

It is the bank accounts of both custodial parents, including step-parents. 

Or in the case of student and spouse, yes, the spouse's income and assets must be reported. 

[Frances]

You can always appeal later directly with the school if you are not happy with the FA award. Although I doubt they would see a financial settlement from an injury as untouchable for spousal education expenses unless all of it was for medical or other related expenses and none was for pain and suffering. In fact, if the injury left him unable to work, they might see using the money for your training and education as a very good use of it.

[AbcdeDooDah]

9 hours ago, Frances said:

You can always appeal later directly with the school if you are not happy with the FA award. Although I doubt they would see a financial settlement from an injury as untouchable for spousal education expenses unless all of it was for medical or other related expenses and none was for pain and suffering. In fact, if the injury left him unable to work, they might see using the money for your training and education as a very good use of it.

It's not community property so I don't think they should be able to use it but oh, well. He's made it very clear the money is his, so it won't be used for my school. 

[catz]

9 hours ago, Frances said:

You can always appeal later directly with the school if you are not happy with the FA award. Although I doubt they would see a financial settlement from an injury as untouchable for spousal education expenses unless all of it was for medical or other related expenses and none was for pain and suffering. In fact, if the injury left him unable to work, they might see using the money for your training and education as a very good use of it.

You can try but no guarantee this will kick up more money.  I'd run your NPC calculators and make sure you have an affordable option on the table.  The calculations don't work well for many people's financial situation.  They certainly didn't for ours and my kid chose his college accordingly.

[athena1277]

If there’s medical or other bills that need to be paid from that money, pay it first, before filing FAFSA.  It will bring your EFC down some.  Unfortunately, whatever is there when you file will be counted.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

Yes.  This happened to me as my husband has a work injury settlement and I was in my master’s program. FAFSA absolutely considered it money I should be able to use lol.  Even if I wasn’t.  It was in an account with his name on it so it got counted.

[Pippen]

2 hours ago, AbcdeDooDah said:

It's not community property so I don't think they should be able to use it but oh, well. He's made it very clear the money is his, so it won't be used for my school. 

The same can be said for a 22-year-old having to declare their parents'  income. We had funds in savings that we absolutely weren't going to use towards college costs for our kids.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Pippen

[Faith-manor]

FAFSA, I believe, is designed to exclude as many students as possible from any hint of financial aid. I think it is this way by design. Our son's medical settlement (not even remotely big enough to cover his expenses for the rest of his life related to this injury) not only counted against him, but it counted against his brothers once we had multiples in college because it was seen as reducing our financial burden as parents and raised our EFC. Our EFC per kid one year on a household income less than $90,000 a year would have put us at $60,000 total EFC! The only thing that saved us was their merit scholarships. We still shelled out 1/3 of Dh's gross income for college so we wouldn't end up dipping into his 401K. Additionally, we had expenses for caring for our mothers, but could claim them as dependents nor deduct those expenses on taxes. He and I lived on next to nothing. But we made it because the house was paid off and so were the cars. We kept it that way. Now we just have this semester and youngest is done. Not paying so much for college allowed us to buy our retirement home in late 2021 before we were completely priced out of the market.

The system is entirely rigged to 100% screw over the bullk of the taxpayers.

Our kids were all in reasonably priced state schools with in state tuition.

And they aren't "independent" until 24 or they get married or have a kid! Insane. Are they adults or not? 

My brother, due to heart attack and stroke, has nearly $100,000 of medical bills he is paying on because despite being "insured" every kind off thing the insurance could think of was disallowed including the ambulance for one event, and the helicopter for the other. He is somehow still working. He is way lower income than us, has no non-retirement savings, and all that debt. His youngest child (20 years old) still can't get any financial aid but unsecured student loans. So she is working a crap job until she turns 24 (not much of anything around here pays well enough to support and adult on their own), and then applying to college.

 

 

[BlsdMama]

3 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

 

And they aren't "independent" until 24 or they get married or have a kid! Insane. Are they adults or not? 

 

Yes!!! DS got his grant taken away because he should be able to pay for school. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Well, on paper, yes! He works as manager for CFA but he pays everything on his own except his car insurance. He’s 23 in March. He’s independent. That money he makes?! Not discretionary. He eats. 
 

And his parents cannot help because they choked on $100k of medical expenses in the past two years. And that withdrawal we took on retirement? We’ll, it wasn’t to pay for a pleasure cruise.  Dying slow is an expensive business. 🤦🏼‍♀️ We’re in the process of an appeal but 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

 

OP I wish you the best of luck. I’m betting there is no avoiding claiming it. We were weighing whether or not to graduate DS17 early and we were pretty evenly decided, but then we decided yes because another in college helps on FAFSA. It’s wasn’t the reason we did it but it certainly weighed in the calculation. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by BlsdMama

[Houston Turner]

On 1/29/2022 at 8:21 PM, Faith-manor said:

FAFSA, I believe, is designed to exclude as many students as possible from any hint of financial aid. I think it is this way by design. Our son's medical settlement (not even remotely big enough to cover his expenses for the rest of his life related to this injury) not only counted against him, but it counted against his brothers once we had multiples in college because it was seen as reducing our financial burden as parents and raised our EFC. Our EFC per kid one year on a household income less than $90,000 a year would have put us at $60,000 total EFC! The only thing that saved us was their merit scholarships. We still shelled out 1/3 of Dh's gross income for college so we wouldn't end up dipping into his 401K. Additionally, we had expenses for caring for our mothers, but could claim them as dependents nor deduct those expenses on taxes. He and I lived on next to nothing. But we made it because the house was paid off and so were the cars. We kept it that way. Now we just have this semester and youngest is done. Not paying so much for college allowed us to buy our retirement home in late 2021 before we were completely priced out of the market.

The system is entirely rigged to 100% screw over the bullk of the taxpayers.

Our kids were all in reasonably priced state schools with in state tuition.

And they aren't "independent" until 24 or they get married or have a kid! Insane. Are they adults or not? 

My brother, due to heart attack and stroke, has nearly $100,000 of medical bills he is paying on because despite being "insured" every kind off thing the insurance could think of was disallowed including the ambulance for one event, and the helicopter for the other. He is somehow still working. He is way lower income than us, has no non-retirement savings, and all that debt. His youngest child (20 years old) still can't get any financial aid but unsecured student loans. So she is working a crap job until she turns 24 (not much of anything around here pays well enough to support and adult on their own), and then applying to college.

Also, in some cases, you should consider opening a credit card in order to put your personal finances in order. If you choose a personal loan or balance transfer, it will probably be better to have a personal loan, I think. But I advise you to read more information from experts.

 

Thank you so much for these recommendations, it's very helpful for me.