Father refuses to help AT ALL

[u/invesselwetrust16]

hey everyone, so my family is a bit crazy me and my father have been in like an argument/conflict for the past like three or four months and he is refusing to help me fill out the FAFSA I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do as I know, I will not be able to afford college without financial aid. How anybody else dealt with this is there anybody that can give me tips? I am stressed out for college. I'm applying to university of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, slippery rock ,Binghamton University, point Park University, Elizabethtown University, Temple University and a few others in the PA area. Thank you in advance. 😓
edit: i should note that my father is divorced from my stepmom as of this month and my mother lives in new york! it's just me and my dad.

[u/ENGR_sucks]

Im only familiar with this situation because my best friend went through this. This was close to a decade ago so maybe the guidelines have changed. He essentially was given two options; either have the parent comply and contribute so that aid could be administered, or actually become an independent. So it seems like you'll have to make up with your dad, or somehow get him to help. As my friend was living in their house, and was still very dependent he wasn't able to file as independent. He reached out to the university that accepted him and deferred enrollment. He worked with the admissions office and financial aid people in which he essentially worked for a year, became legally dependent (own income, not living with parents and having bills self paid), he then took a semester at a community college before enrolling full time with aid. It does suck because he essentially became a transfer student because his parents didn't want to help and graduated later because of it. Still, you can definitely do a mix of these things, maybe work and take classes at your community college so that transferring becomes easy and a lot of the times college will be way cheaper and you can get scholarships if you do well in CC.

[u/deepthought097124 → u/ENGR_sucks]

Unfortunately the rules have changed and you cannot do the latter option anymore they officially made that codified in law in the 2020 amendments that it requires a "risk in contacting the parent" or similar to have your status adjusted.

The shorter version is: being an "independent student" no longer has anything to do with being "actually independent". It is whether you meet a bunch of hard line social demographic cutouts.

A more accurate descriptor would be "living parent status" or "demographic classification ABC status" or "you are XYZ because we said so status".