Here's my two cents based on what I experienced and what I learned when my own two kids were in college from 2004 through 2009.
For starters, the title of your post seems to contradict the body. "How to get financial aid "WHILE BEING A DEPENDENT". Either you qualify to be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return, or you don't. There's not grey area or middle ground here.
I'm 19 and will be living on my own for next tax-year while a full-time student
The "living on my own" statement doesn't necessarily mean you're not a dependent. But it doesn't mean you are either. Understand that if you *QUALIFY* to be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return, it flat out does not matter if that "someone else" claims you or not. You just flat out will not qualify for any of the education credits, except "maybe" a portion of the AOTC.
You will need to have a job that produces enough "EARNED" income to justify any claim that you provided more than 50% of your own support. Support includes, but is not limited to the following:
- Cost of tuition, books and lab fees
- Rent/Mortgage
- Utilities cost
- Meal costs
- Transportation costs
- Clothing costs
- Entertainment costs
- Out of Pocket medical/dental/vision expenses not covered by insurance
- Healthcare costs (includes insurance premiums paid)
Now the above is not all inclusive. But the IRS provides a worksheet at https://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/teacher/worksheet_for_determining_support_4012.pdf that can be used as a rough guide.
Note also that your earned income for the entire tax year needs to be high enough to justify you providing more than 50% of your own support for the entire tax year.
Now it is perfectly possible that regardless of your earnings, you don't provide more than 50% of your support for the entire tax year. For example, monies received from scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, gifts from Aunt Mary, etc., *do* *not* *count* for providing your own support.
Basically, if reasonable expenses including education costs are say for example, $80,000 for the entire tax year and you earned $80,000 during that same tax year, it's possible for you to still not qualify as being independent if you received more than $40,000 from third party sources such as scholarships, grants, 529 distributions, etc. That would mean a parent would qualify to claim you. The key word here is 'QUALIFY". Weather they actually claim you or not is irrelevant.
Oh yeah, another thing that counts in your favor is if you are the primary borrower on a "qualified" student loan and sufficient funds from that loan are distributed to you during the tax year to support a claim of having provided more than half of your own support for the entire tax year. It's important that "YOU" are the primary borrower on the loan, and the loan must be a "qualified" student loan. A student loan can sometimes be tricky to get without a parent being the primary borrower. So while it may take a bit of searching on your part, it's perfectly doable. Generally, if you are the primary borrower and a parent co-signs the loan, as the secondary responsible party (not the primary) then it's not an issue.
Is there any alternative/way to receive financial aid that isn't based on my parent's tax return?
I can give you a bit on some tricks my daughter learned and shared with me. But understand this was back in 2005-2009 while she attended college. My daughter only qualified for 75% Bright Futures scholarship. (It's a Florida thing). We parents were having a rough time coming up with the other 25%, plus having to pay for her lodging, food and transportation. So my daughter googled the hell out of "scholarships" and applied for an average of maybe 15-20 a week. A majority of them were small amounts anywhere from a one time payment of $50 to $250. For example, she got a $50 check from Flying J truck stops and a $200 check from Wal-Mart. No one in my family works for these companies and never have. She just applied on line. She applied for hundreds of the penny-ante scholarships and grants. I would say on average that for every 50 she applied for, she got a scholarship or grant payout from one.
She'd spend the week days on school work. Then finish up any weekend work assignments as soon as possible and spend the rest of the weekend in her dorm room looking online for scholarships and applying for any and all she could find, so matter how large or small the payout would be.
In the end, after a rough first semester, she never asked us for money again for the remainder of her college time.
In closing, if you or your parents have any ties to the military or DOD, the Air Force Aid Society (AFAS) has a few scholarships they offer every year. the payout is $1500 a year. All you have to do is apply. That's it. I got full payout every year for both of my kids from AFAS - even the year that both kids were in college at the same time. Still got a full payout for both of them that year. I was shocked. They say the number of scholarships is limited. But from my experience, this program is so unknown, they don't have enough apply each year to use up the available funds. So if you have any military or DOD connections in the family, give it a try. The worst that can happen is that you get nothing.
For my kids, we used the Hap Arnold Grant which you can read about at https://afas.org/haparnoldgrant/. If you don't meet the requirements to apply for that specific one, then check out the others that are linked to from that page.
since I will be fully providing for myself for the 2022 tax-year will I be able to claim myself as an independent?
Just for clarity, you don't "claim yourself" for anything on a tax return. Either you qualify to be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return, or your don't. Period.
