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My question is how and when to approach college financial aid offices about their policy regarding parents currently involved in bankruptcy.

We are currently in the middle of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. I work 2 40 hour a week jobs and my wife works her regular professional job and another part time. Our bankruptcy will pay all our creditors 100%. We have an upcoming senior and we want to be realistic regarding the money we will be expected to pay from a college's point of view as well as how much we can actually pay. Because we've chosen to secure additional work our AGI is quite high. We have very little equity and no other assets. Just stable, good paying jobs. Our bankruptcy payments will not be finished for 2 more years. The payments are about 30% of our gross. I wanted to know when and how to approach fin aid offices about this.

Any helpful advice or references will be appreaciated.

Thanks,
Frazzled

By Trialboy (Trialboy) on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 08:38 am: Edit

Hi,
are you still on-line?

By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Friday, July 16, 2004 - 03:19 pm: Edit

Write a letter explaining your situation to each of the college's financial aid offices. You are not going to get any break for the payments you have to make; they are treated as any other debt. Your EFC will still be about 25-35% of your AGI, 35% of your student's assets, 5% of your assets. For schools that have the PROFile or other supplements, there is a place where you can explain this situation, and there may or may not be consideration made for it, depending on the school.