Students with nontraditional parents who live together must report both parents’ income and other financial information on their 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
The application will now use terms like “Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent)” and “Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent)” instead of gender-specific labels, according to a press release.
Students can also list their parents’ marital status as “unmarried and both parents living together.”
Director of UF’s Office for Student Financial Affairs Rick Wilder said in a phone interview that he doesn’t anticipate a lot of UF students will be impacted.
“The number of students who come from situations like that at UF would be relatively small,” he said.
Wilder said the FAFSA change targets unmarried parents. Under the old FAFSA rules, applicants only had to report one income if their parents weren’t married but were living together.
FAFSA submission is required for students to be eligible for Bright Futures scholarships.
In a press release, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the changes would allow for a more precise calculation of federal student aid eligibility.
Contact Julia Glum at jglum@alligator.org.
