Forgot to report paper bonds on FAFSA

cptofthehouse
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:03:49 +0000

You are correct that the amounts will not match, but if you are audited for either and one asset shows up on one and not the other, it is mismatch. The chances that it happens is small but if you want to get technical, a problem with the FAFSA can be more serious because it’s the feds and if they can get very nasty about mistakes like this. PROFILE Is private and is often not subject to as intense scrutiny and federal penalities are not an issue here. Your eligibility for federal funds express by EFC will likely be different from what your institutional expected contribuiton will be. Usually, the FAFSA EFC is smaller, so there is no issue. But you will very likely be getting federal aid of sorts, and so your FAFSA audits should be squeaky clean.

How much of a difference these bonds will make is not likely to be that much if they do not have large face amounts. You really don’t want to start a young adult off with an erroneous federal application for aid–bear in mind, the FAFSA is really his/hers, not yours despite your filling it out and signing your part of it. The ultimate responsibility for it is on the kid, and who knows where your student will end up looking for work and what audits can be pulled up? I think the chances of this coming up are miniscule, frankly, but why start the kid off on the wrong foot? If you leave out an asset because you over looked it, you gotta report it and redo with the info. How much is not the issue. What if the bonds were worth double, or five times or ten times or 100 times the amount? Where does one draw the line here? It’s not the amount but the principle and you are starting out launching a kid into the world on his own. Give him a clean slate.