Hey TL,

So my dad recently did his taxes and part of that included paying me some money for stuff I did to help out his company (like website, other IT stuff, etc).

My question is whether or not this is going to affect my chances at getting any financial aid when I apply for college (currently a sophomore).

Thanks for any insight.

slam

United States923 Posts

April 06 2012 01:44 GMT

Why are you asking this on a TL forum? Really not the best place.... but I guess I could be wrong.
My advice would be take this question to someone working for financial aid.

My completely uninformed attempt at an answer: It sounds like you didn't make very much money from the wording so most likely it won't factor in that much.

sharkeyanti

United States1273 Posts

April 06 2012 01:44 GMT

Well it would depend on how much work you did, certainly. If you are in the lowest tax bracket, and made less than say $2000 last year you should be fine. When you apply for aid, and if you include this work, you can write a note detailing what you did and whatnot if you feel it's not representative of your ability to pay. If you filled out your taxes for this work, then obviously you have to detail it. But if you didn't report your income, then don't have your dad include it on the FAFSA or whatever your school of choice uses.

To answer your question specifically, applicant income for high schoolers doesn't affect your aid much at all if it's low. Most of the aid you get is based on your family's ability to pay. If your dad/parents can't contribute anything to your education, make sure you indicate that on your FAFSA application.

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

April 06 2012 01:45 GMT

Wouldn't that help you? He spent money paying an extra worker (you), so thats extra expenses for his business. Also if its more of an issue that you have an income just have him pay you under the table lol.

Jaso

United States2147 Posts

April 06 2012 01:46 GMT

I'm asking on TL because there's probably a lot of college students or recent college grads here..

CC might be better but meh. I don't have an account there.

Melchior

United States112 Posts

April 06 2012 01:58 GMT

First of all, they only look at the previous year's income when determining financial aid, so no, what your dad is doing now won't have any effect on your financial aid.

If he keeps doing it, though, it's not going to significantly affect your financial aid, since your family income is probably orders of magnitude larger than your personal income. Your dad's just trying to reduce his tax burden by deducting business expenses. Actually, since that'll reduce his AGI, it'll probably even help with financial aid since on paper he has less money available to contribute towards your education.

slam

United States923 Posts

April 06 2012 02:07 GMT

On April 06 2012 10:46 Jaso wrote:
I'm asking on TL because there's probably a lot of college students or recent college grads here..

CC might be better but meh. I don't have an account there.

From personal experience, CC is great. I highly recommend it if you are serious about finishing and not scared of losing focus.

Also great way to save a lot of money (and you don't feel bad about spending some extra time to take a few non-required classes to find something you might be interested in if you are unsure of your major.)

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

April 06 2012 02:21 GMT

On April 06 2012 11:07 slam wrote:

Show nested quote +

By CC he means College Confidential, biggest website for college and stuff

Jaso

United States2147 Posts

April 06 2012 02:50 GMT

Wait, what CC did he think it was? o_O

Megaliskuu

United States5123 Posts

April 06 2012 02:52 GMT

#10

On April 06 2012 11:50 Jaso wrote:
Wait, what CC did he think it was? o_O

Community College

PrinceXizor

United States17713 Posts

April 06 2012 04:11 GMT

#11

Jaso, i'd recommend looking at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

that's the site you use to fill out the form that can get you federal aid for college. State run financial aid doesn't use fafsa directly though often requires that you fill it out anyway. Filling fafsa out early can net you additional aid. IN addition to all of this, often you can apply for a large (LARGE) number of scholarships from various organizations by writing an essay and submitting an application.

you can apply for an incredibly large amount of these scholarships nationwide for the following 5 essays if you care to write them now and keep updating/proofreading them for a couple years. Oftentimes these are used as college admissions essays as well. typically these are between 250 and 750 words, but 500 is a good goal to set and alter from based on specific requirements.

Write about a person who inspired you, and explain how they changed your life.
Write about a time in your life that affected who you are personally.
Write about your own positive qualities, in regards to honor, integrity, work effort ect.
Write about your goals, and how you plan on reaching them.
Write about your family and what they mean to you.

In general, whoever is claiming you as a dependent, but total their assets in the bank/stocks as well as your current income (previous years taxes) to determine "need".

Being prepared with essays as well as doing a large amount of research on scholarships you can often get a few thousand a year extra from private enterprises, even more if you are a minority (inc woman). My biggest regret when getting started with college was that i didn't apply for a bunch of the big scholaships, many scholarships are offered for incoming freshman only and apply every semester for 4 years. getting a couple of these can add up to 8000 dollars easily.

feanor1

United States1899 Posts

April 06 2012 05:05 GMT

#12

On April 06 2012 10:31 Jaso wrote:
Hey TL,

So my dad recently did his taxes and part of that included paying me some money for stuff I did to help out his company (like website, other IT stuff, etc).

My question is whether or not this is going to affect my chances at getting any financial aid when I apply for college (currently a sophomore).

Thanks for any insight.

Unless you were being payed a large sum. IE greater than 10k(Totally arbitrary and not based on anything other than that being a lot of money for someone in high school to earn in one year) it probably won't matter. Its almost completely based on your parents income, since your income is usually inconsequential in comparison.

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