I applied for the 2019/20 FAFSA in December 2018 and am intending to send it to two colleges I’m applying to transfer to. When I got my EFC back it was over twice the amount of last years (3030 to 6570) and I’m only able to change certain values on it, none of the tax info can be touched or seen by anyone.
I changed my legal first name this year and it’s caused a lot of issues, so this combined with an inaccuracy in the IRS Transfer might have caused the issue, or that’s what my current college thinks. We’ve tried to get my FAFSA corrected or find a way to redo it entirely but nothing has worked.
I’m in a family of 3 with a single mom who makes >$45k a year, which means I should be eligible for Pell Grant, right? What should I do to fix this?
Go through the applicable FAFSA formula worksheet, using the same numbers that you used when you completed the 2019-2020 FAFSA and the numbers that should have been imported from the IRS, and see what EFC you get. If you think that the FAFSA EFC you got is too high, you first need to determine if it really is too high, and then you need to figure out what is wrong before you can fix anything.
https://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/1920EFCFormulaGuide.pdf
Did you have a sibling in college on last year’s FAFSA, but not on this one?
Did you qualify for simplified needs before but not now?
There’s a mistake somewhere. Go over last year’s and compare to this year’s
Uh… > means “more than”…not “less than”
Your current college shouldn’t be “thinking” anything. They need to look at your ISIR (the school’s version of the SAR) and figure it out. Find someone there who will look at your info and help you. It’s their job (and I work in financial aid, so I can say that).
Any chance your parent did a rollover of a tax deferred retirement account to another tax deferred retirement account in 2017?
@thumper1 not to highjack butI’m waiting for a call back from financial aid about this. EFC went from $20k something to $179k. I did have rolllover because I lost my job and rolled the money into a different account. How did this screw up the EFC???
Sounds like it wasn’t noted as a rollover, and therefore FAFSA treated it as a distribution available for college expenses.
If you use the IRS data Retrieval tool, your rollover appears as an income distribution. There is a place to note this rollover amount in the FAFSA and a small box to check.
People miss it.
You need to contact your college. You will need to provide financial aid with documentation of the rollover. The financial aid office at the college will be able to help make this adjustment to your FAFSA.
You can NOT make this change yourself…so…call tomorrow morning (unless you live in the frozen tundra Midwest where lots of colleges are closed tomorrow) and find out what you need to do.
The name change shouldn’t change the income in any way, assuming you kept the same SSN. People change their names all the time (marriage, divorce, adoption, whim) and it doesn’t change their income. I’m assuming your FSA ID didn’t change and everything was processed electronically. Did you use the DRT from the IRS? Did you check that there were 2 in college? Are there 2 in college?
Thanks @thumper1 I had a feeling that was it. They never called me back so I will try again. Thanks!
@mommdc I’m the oldest and the first to go to college so no one was going last year. Also I’ve looked up simplified needs and it seems we fit that category last year and this year, but we didn’t qualify for SNAP after about 2012 so it never affected my aid.
@thumper1 my mom did not do a rollover, that was one of the first things I verified when we noticed the error
@twoinanddone all the parts I filled in I’ve checked multiple times and I’m positive I didn’t check 2 in college. It lists 3 in household, 1 in college currently (the only error I’ve found and had to fix was I accidentally listed 2 in household, but that was fixed months ago).
@aidenpng well…clearly…something is not correct.
No income increase?
Did your family sell a piece of real estate and the money is in the bank? An inheritance? What ARE your assets, and did those change?
Did you qualify for the simplified needs test in the past? Or not? Your post is confusing. Either you did…or you didn’t.
What was your EFC result a few months ago when you wrongly had 2 listed in college?
Something is wrong. Are you sure that you didn’t put mom’s income in twice…for you and for her? Or maybe for her and for a spouse (that doesn’t exist)?
Your mom isn’t married, correct? Your dad doesn’t live in the same house, correct? Your parents didn’t file taxes jointly, correct?
Does your mom receive child support??? If so, how much per month?
@thumper1 I did and still do seemingly qualify for simplified needs. Nothing changed between 2016 and 2017 moneywise as far as I know, we were renting the same house from our uncle and my mom didn’t inherit or receive any money more than in 2016. No marriage or divorce, family death, retirement fund shift. I don’t have access to my moms tax info and can’t see it on the FAFSA but she has told me there is no change…
@mom2collegekids my EFC was the 6570 amount and that went down to about 5600 when I corrected the family size mistake. In 2017 I was able to work for the first time but I only made about $600 so I don’t think that would’ve affected my EFC, and I filled out only my portion so I’m sure that wasn’t filled out wrong. My mom has always filed as HoH and she gets about $6000 a year in child support. My mom was divorced in 2017 and still is so that shouldn’t affect it.
The issues we’re having are really concerning because we can’t really afford the EFC we were given last year since we lost our residence in summer 2017. When the taxes were filed we still paid rent and lived at the house, so that shouldn’t factor in until next year.
If you can get in touch with an aid officer who knows their stuff, they can review your FAFSA and figure out what is contributing to the high EFC. Things like that are relatively easy to spot.
@BelknapPoint my mom provided me with her tax info so I could fill out this form with 100% accuracy. After doing so my EFC was listed as 3746, almost 2000 less than the FAFSA claims. I called the FAFSA helpline to figure out what I can do to correct the tax info that was transferred from the IRS and they told me I’m not allowed to correct that info or resubmit a new application. I can’t make corrections to the tax info transferred. I’m hoping my schools financial aid dept will take me seriously now that I’ve filled out the forms and have the tax info…