True, but the formula only looks at one year’s income. Therefore, there are assumptions about how long that family has had that income to be able to save/contribute that much money to school.
Yep. But 1) This is a Disney board, over the years the number of people we've had this conversation with who cry poverty with their FAFSA and have a decade and a half of annual Deluxe trips into their signature is way less than zero (I am not saying this is true of you or the OP, just that some of us have developed some justified cynicism on the topic of "I never had anything to save for college" and a posting history of "we are only going to be able to do three character meals when we go in June - which ones should we save for our December trip?") 2) You have to be poor to qualify for grants, and the vast majority of people don't go from poor for eighteen years to middle class just as their kids are going off to college. 3) The vast majority of aid is loans. So a change in income might change the work study your kid qualifies for (which they may never have access to) or move you from federal to private loans - and the deals on federal loans aren't that great to start with. 4) Schools themselves aren't limited to the FAFSA when determining aid, so if your kid gets into a school and you can't afford it, you can always make a plea to the school that your income has seen a sudden shift and hope more aid is forthcoming. Sometimes this works - it did for my kid's best friend - whose mother was delighted when they got the acceptance letter, then crushed because they wouldn't be able to afford it. But a phone call got the aid package changed - and now the school has stepped up again since Covid has meant they have even less income. With other schools they just don't - ever. But its worth a shot.