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What should students and their remarried parents — or soon-to-be-remarried parents — know before applying for college financial aid?
It all begins with the 22-page, 40-question Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as the FAFSA. This form is the key that unlocks federal loans, grants, and work-study jobs, as well as state-funded scholarships and grants. Schools also require the FAFSA — and sometimes additional forms — to consider the student for institutional aid.
The more complex your family situation, the more arduous this process gets. So, when one or both of a student’s biological or adoptive parents have remarried, figuring out both the instructions and the strategies for completing financial aid applications requires extra time, patience, and strategy. As with tax returns, you can save a lot of money when you know how the system works and plan accordingly. And, like taxes, it sometimes helps to reach out to a financial professional for guidance and to help sort out options.
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How the FAFSA looks at remarried parents
Remarriage only matters for the FAFSA if the remarried parent is also the one who provides more of the student’s financial support. In that case, the federal student aid formula will include the new spouse’s assets and income.
Because the FAFSA ignores prenuptial agreements, a stepparent cannot use such an agreement to avoid having their assets and income factored into the stepchild’s financial aid equation. The FAFSA can’t force stepparents to actually contribute, but students will have to make up for the FAFSA’s assumed contribution some other way.
A stepparent who doesn’t want to contribute to a stepchild’s education doesn’t necessarily have bad intentions. Even if they appear well-off on paper, they may need those funds to help their own children pay for college. They might not even be combining finances in their new marriage due to financial abuse or infidelity in a past relationship.
Parents who have gone through the financial aid process with older children should know that starting with the 2024–25 academic year, the federal aid formula changed. When a student’s parents are divorced or separated and not living together, the FAFSA started asking only about the parent who provides most of the child’s financial support. Previously, it asked about the parent the child lived with more.
Remarriage and institutional aid
While some schools consider only the FAFSA, others also use the CSS Profile (CSS stands for College Scholarship Service) or their own application to award institutional aid. These differing forms and formulas make things extra tricky when remarriage enters the picture.
The biggest complication is that many private schools (and some state schools) expect both parents, and sometimes both parents’ new partners or spouses, to contribute their income and assets toward the applicant’s college costs. They may also have a broader definition of assets and consider retirement accounts, home equity, and business net worth.
More resources may result in a smaller award, while more obligations may result in a larger award. (Related: A primer on college financial aid)
Does remarriage hurt financial aid?
Two adults instead of one often translates to more income and assets, so it might seem like remarriage means less financial aid. Families might fear that the outcome will be fewer opportunities or more student debt — and it’s a legitimate concern.
Cameron Starc, financial counselor at Starculus Math & Money, said his parents’ divorce and later remarriage to other people impacted his college aid and choices in ways none of them anticipated.
“When applying for financial aid, we didn’t expect my stepdad’s income to be considered, but it was,” Starc said. “He made too much for me to receive aid and not enough to pay outright, even on a payment plan.”
Starc was also the first in his family to attend college. Neither he nor his parents knew anything about building a high school resume or preparing for standardized tests like the SAT. Building a competitive college application can sometimes lead to merit scholarships at schools with generous institutional aid. (Learn more: What challenges do first-generation college students face?)
“Since I wanted to be a math teacher, minimizing student debt by attending community college for two years was the wisest financial decision,” Starc said. “I was able to take a full load of classes, work part time, and live rent free.”
The lack of financial aid didn’t stop him from achieving his career goals. After earning his associate’s degree, he transferred to an affordable private college for his bachelor’s and later earned a master’s.
Reconsider remarriage to get more financial aid?
An ideal situation might be one where remarriage increases the family’s resources so significantly that paying cash for college becomes easy.
A more realistic scenario might be that remarriage increases financial aid because the new, blended family has more obligations relative to their assets and incomes than the student’s previously single parent had. Perhaps the stepparent has a lower income or was wiped out by their own divorce.
If a student’s parent is contemplating remarriage or engaged but hasn’t legally tied the knot yet, it might be worth assessing how remarriage could help or hurt the student’s financial aid package.
“Think about what is most important to you,” Starc said. “If getting married to this wonderful person is more important than the financial implications it will have on the student aid, then do it! If maximizing financial aid in this season is more important than the timing of the wedding, then file the FAFSA first.”
The FAFSA only cares about parents’ marital status on the application date. The first day a student can apply is Oct. 1 of the year before they will enter college. For the 2026–27 school year, applicants can submit the FAFSA as early as Oct. 1, 2025. (Related: Your FAFSA Submission Summary)
“In either case, I recommend meeting with a financial planner who specializes in college planning, so you can discuss other topics such as school selection, totals costs, student loans, parent loans, and the long-term impact on your financial situation,” Starc said.
Remarriage financial aid strategy limitations
Students must reapply for financial aid each year, so postponing remarriage may not be a viable long-term strategy.
However, since remarriage can dramatically change how much a school expects a family to contribute, briefly postponing the decision might be practical when the student is entering their senior year of college.
“For the FAFSA specifically, the household who provides the most support is who files — so that would include the parent and their new spouse, if remarried,” said Robert Farrington, financial aid expert and founder of The College Investor.
Once remarried, strategies that can help increase financial aid by lowering reportable assets include paying off consumer debts and making retirement contributions, Farrington explained. However, these strategies may not help much.
Just 5.64 percent (at most) of parent assets can count against a student’s potential aid under FAFSA’s methodology. By comparison, parents are expected to contribute anywhere from 22 percent to 47 percent of their discretionary income.
Remarriage and financial aid surprises
Recent FAFSA changes may bring unpleasant surprises to remarried parents who have sent other children to college under the previous rules.
Household size impacts how much of a parent’s income is expected to be available for college expenses. Starting with the 2024–25 academic year, the FAFSA calculates household size differently than it used to:
● A dependent now must live in the household to count toward household size. (Temporary absences for school, illness, business, vacation, or military service are fine.)
● Previously, if a parent provided more than half of a child’s financial support, that child counted toward household size even if they lived elsewhere (for example, with another parent).
Another unwelcome change is that the FAFSA no longer adjusts to a student’s aid index when the family has more than one child in college. Institutions may still adjust their aid accordingly, however, which means the optimal financial aid strategy can depend on the school.
It can also depend on which parent remarries. If the parent who provides less financial support remarries, it won’t matter for schools that only consider FAFSA information.
Family dynamics around remarriage and student aid
This is where having an amicable relationship with one’s ex can be helpful. If both parents provide similar amounts of support, mutually agreeing on a small shift might improve federal financial aid eligibility.
There’s another possibility, albeit a riskier and more complex one. A future stepparent could potentially help the student pay for college without that money impacting financial aid if the parent and future stepparent don’t live together.
On the FAFSA, the future stepparent’s contributions would have counted as untaxed income to the student as recently as the 2023-24 academic year, but that’s no longer the case. As long as the student spends the gift, it won’t become a student asset that could decrease aid the following year.
Of course, it’s a big ask. Not many people would want to use their own income or assets to help a future stepchild pay for college (especially if they have college obligations for other children). Nor would they want the added hassle of possibly needing to file an informational gift tax return with the IRS.
Trying to use the rules to your advantage might not have the hoped-for benefits and can also have unintended consequences.
Planning ahead for remarriage and financial aid
Financial aid rules can be hard to make sense of no matter what a family’s circumstances. Divorce or widowhood and subsequent remarriage doesn’t make college financial aid planning any easier.
These types of outside-the-box situations are where the right MassMutual financial professional’s expertise can prove particularly valuable. Learning how remarriage could affect financial aid eligibility can help families avoid surprises and plan accordingly.
Discover more from MassMutual…
Protecting your finances in a second marriage
Families saving for college: A mutual approach
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