In past years haven’t the majority of verifications been because parents didn’t link their tax return? We were selected for verification in 2022 and found out 5 minutes after hitting the submit button. The only thing we needed to do was to submit our tax return to the college where S22 was attending. The college was clear that FAFSA selected us for verification so they were required to ask for the tax return.
That was super simple and it took me five minutes to upload in the college portal.
So now that tax returns are automatically linked, will the verifications decrease significantly? I think if there had not been so many issues, the answer would be yes. But now, with various questions causing many to need to edit or those who have no intention of editing but made mistakes, who knows what will happen.
So of the reported issues in the world of FB
-including value of primary residence
-including all retirement accounts
-including values of all 529’s (and not just in name of student)
-checking the wrong box when it asked if parent’s will provide info
-signature issues
-free lunch box
Are people who are asked for asset information thinking that they need to include the value of their primary residence & retirement accounts? The information button next to investments explains not to include those things. Not sure how to help people understand if they won’t read the explanation. It becomes cumbersome if every explanation is printed out on the form. Maybe just do that for the things that mess up the most people. Maybe FSA should be reading social media & CC to understand what things are the most misunderstood so they can fix it.
I sure hope not, but I imagine some make this mistake every year. Really, the info button that is frequently available/populated on FAFSA is very helpful (it’s important to call out good things that FSA has done too!)
Every student who attends NYC Public School can receive free lunch. However, title I funding is based on students completing lunch forms that deem them eligible for free/reduced lunch.
Students can be eligible for free lunch as a direct feed from HRA (public assistance- meal code A) or by income (meal code 1). Students who are eligible for reduced lunch are indicated on the school’s meal code report as meal code 2.
While every NYCPS student can eat free lunch on the school’s demographics they only list students who are meal code A, 1, or 2. For students who are opportunity program eligible (economically disadvantaged), some colleges have asked us for certification that the student is financially eligible for free or reduced lunch
“ *Some individuals may receive free or reduced-price school lunch due to community eligibility rather than household eligibility. Students should only indicate they received free or reduced-price school lunch on the FAFSA form if they meet the income eligibility guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture”