But you might be surprised to learn that there are no FAFSA income limits to qualify for aid. For example, a family with a household income of hundreds of thousands of dollars could be helped by other factors in the FAFSA formula, including school costs and the number of siblings also attending school.
There is no set income limit for eligibility to qualify for financial aid through. You'll need to fill out the FAFSA every year to see what you qualify for at your college. It's important to make sure you fill out the FAFSA as quickly as possible once it opens for the following school year.
Students often skip filling out the FAFSA because they think their families make too much money to qualify for aid. However, there are no FAFSA income limits, so you can submit it—and potentially get valuable financial aid—regardless of your family's earnings.
What happens if your parents make too much money to qualify for financial aid? You may have to shift course a little bit, but there are other ways to get help paying for all of the expenses of college, including merit-based scholarships, non-need-based federal student loans, and private student loans.
For example, if your citizenship status changed because your visa expired or it was revoked, then you would be ineligible. Other reasons for financial aid disqualification include: Not maintaining satisfactory progress at your college or degree program. Not filling out the FAFSA each year you are enrolled in school.
Don't worry, this is a common question for many students. The good news is that the Department of Education doesn't have an official income cutoff to qualify for federal financial aid. So, even if you think your parents' income is too high, it's still worth applying (plus, it's free to apply).
Question: Is the FAFSA based on your parents' or guardians' income? Answer: Although your parents' or guardians' income can influence your financial aid offer when filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the application also factors in a lot of other information.
There are no income limits on the FAFSA. Instead, your eligibility for federal student aid depends on how much your college costs and what your family should contribute. Learn how your FAFSA eligibility is calculated and other ways to pay for college if you don't qualify for federal student aid.
A student may already be financially independent, but they're not considered legally independent for the FAFSA until they reach 24 years old — unless they qualify for a dependency override. In that case, you can fill out the FAFSA without your parents' or guardians' financial information.
A student age 24 or older by Dec. 31 of the award year is considered independent for federal financial aid purposes.
Your parents can use their tax return(s), W-2s, or other earning statements to calculate their separate earnings. Include income that they earned from Federal Work-Study or any other need-based employment, as well as the amount reported in box 14 (Code A) of IRS Schedule K-1 (IRS Form 1065), if applicable.
The FAFSA formula doesn't expect students or families to use all of their adjusted available income to pay for college. The formula allocates 50 percent of a dependent student's adjusted available income to cover college expenses and anywhere from 22 to 47 percent of parents' available income.
The maximum Federal Pell Grant for the 2023–24 award year (July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024) is $7,395. The amount an individual student may receive depends on a number of factors. Learn more via the links below: Learn what factors go into determining the amount of Pell Grant funding a student receives.
That often means using a combination of need-based grants, scholarships, work-study, loans, savings and current income. Many colleges work with families to set up payment plans for out-of-pocket costs.
Parent income — i.e., the money a student's parents, legal guardians, or step-parents earn from their jobs — is one of the primary sources of funding for the average kid's college degree. In the past year, 63% of families used one or more parent's current income to fund college expenses, Sallie Mae reports.
According to financial advisor Jordan Gilberti at Facet, most families should still fill out the FAFSA even if they have a high income since some schools require this form in order to receive merit-based aid.
Housing Choice Impacts The Cost of Attendance
Off-Campus: This figure can vary. Generally, it will be lower than the cost of dorms but higher than living at home. With Parents: The commuter student generally has the lowest cost of attendance with reduced room and board costs.
If your parents or guardians refuse to pay for college, your best options may be to file the FAFSA as an independent. Independent filers are not required to include information about their parents' income or assets. As a result, your EFC will be very low and you will probably get a generous financial aid offer.
Some types of information that might be verified include income, taxes, education tax credits, child support, high school completion status or number of members in your household. You can reduce the chances of a verification by importing information from your FAFSA directly from the IRS's data retrieval tool.
Even some merit-based scholarships offered by colleges and universities require applicants to file the FAFSA. Thus, many college planning experts recommend that students from higher-income households also fill out the FAFSA (or, if your college instructs you, the CSS Financial Aid Profile form).
Even if your family makes multiple six figures a year, you can still get financial aid. That said, not financial aid is created equal. Ideally, you want free money, or grants not loans. Despite earning a six-figure household income, many parents struggle to pay for their children's education without going into debt.
The basic theory is that the lower your EFC, the bigger your financial aid award. A family with an adjusted income of $50,000 and two dependents would expect to have an EFC of around $3,800 without considering any other financial assets. A family with income of $100,000, would have an EFC of approximately $20,000.
Amount of Your Income Tax
The FAFSA form is asking for your assessed income tax liability, not the amount of income tax withheld and not your adjusted gross income. We know this can be complicated.
The maximum amount of money you can get from a Pell Grant is: $7,395 (2023–24). The amount granted depends on your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), cost of attendance, your status as a full-time or part-time student, and your plans to attend school for a full academic year or less.