Financial Aid FAQs

If you have an extremely adverse circumstance that prevents you from receiving assistance from your parents, you should contact the Financial Aid Office. However, you should note that your parents' unwillingness to provide their financial information or to pay their expected contribution is not accepted as an adverse circumstance.

If you don't meet one of the federal criteria to be an independent student, you will have to supply your parents' information on the Financial Aid application. If extenuating family circumstances prevent you from supplying your parents' information, contact the Financial Aid Office to discuss your situation.

If your parents are separated or divorced, the custodial parent is responsible for filling out the FAFSA. The custodial parent is the parent with whom you lived the most during the past 12 months. Note that this is not necessarily the same as the parent who has legal custody. If you did not live with one parent more than the other, the parent who provided you with the most financial support should fill out the financial aid application. This is probably the parent who claimed you as a dependent on their tax return. If you have not received any support from either parent during the past 12 months, use the most recent calendar year for which you received some support from a parent or lived with either parent. Note, however, that any child support and/or alimony received from the non-custodial parent must be included on the financial aid application.

Yes, even though your father and stepmother were not married in 2010. When he completes Step Four of the FAFSA or CA Dream Act Application, the term "parents" includes your stepmother.

Prenuptial agreements are ignored by FAFSA and CA Dream Act Application. The federal government and CA Student Aid Commission consider the stepparent a source of support regardless of any prenuptial agreements to the contrary.

Yes, you still have to report your parents' personal and financial information until you meet the federal criteria for an independent student. Please remember to convert their income information into U.S. dollars. Unless your parents already have their social security numbers, please list zeros (000-00-0000).