 TITLE: How Does Financial Aid Work for Divorced Parents? CONTENT: Should You Fill Out the FAFSA?\n------------------------------\nUnless your family has the means to pay for college outright, completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is the place to start. When you apply for financial aid through just about any college, the FAFSA will be a required part of your application. The FAFSA calculates your eligibility for federal financial aid, but it also may be used to consider state financial aid and institutional aid from your college of choice, including merit-based scholarships.\nUnless both parents still live in the same home, only one parent needs to complete the FAFSA. If your parents are divorced and live in separate households, fill out the FAFSA using information for your custodial parent only. If you split time between your parents' households, your custodial parent for these purposes is:\n*   **The parent you lived with more during the past 12 months.** Even if your parents have 50-50 custody, most years have an odd number of days, so you can use whichever parent you spent more days with as your custodial parent.\n*   **The parent who provided the majority of your support.** If you truly spent equal time with both parents, consider the parent who provided the majority of your support to be your custodial parent.\nInformation from your FAFSA will be used to create a Student Aid Report, which will be supplied to the schools you've listed on your application. The school you commit to will use the FAFSA to determine federal grants, work study and loans to offer you, and may also use it to calculate state aid or school-specific funding. END