Forgot to report paper bonds on FAFSA

cptofthehouse
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 16:56:21 +0000

If you are hoping for financial aid from a college, they require FAFSA to be filed. It is highly likely that if you get financial aid from a college the aid will include self help with things like the subsidized Stafford loans, Work study and maybe even Perkins and SEOG in the mix. These are all federal funds. Also PLUS and any number of other loans are backed by the federal government and a FAFSA is required for them, and yes, you can be asked to verify that info even when you have ZERO financial need ( we were, just for unsub loans and PLUS).

Also the PROFILE will have to jive with the FAFSA, so if the loans are listed on PROFILE and not on FAFSA, that could be a flag. Some schools do a a cross check.

If the money is in the student’s name, the result can have far reaching consequences as some schools willl take that amount and apportion it over all four years, as well as including the siblings assets. The 20% of students’ assets toward EFC is just the FAFSA percentage. Some PROFLIE schools take more than that. The same with the 5.6% over allowance figure of the parental/sibling assets.

It appears that the amounts are not that big, but, yes, they are supposed to be reported, and yes, they have a value. Yes, assets vary, month to month, and when it comes to checking account balances even from day to day. That’s why it’s advised to pick a day when you file the FAFSA when the accounts are at a low balance and you don’t have earmarked funds in there. It doesn’t matter if you have the insurance proceeds to fix your wrecked car in the account. You are not supposed to subtract them out. You can’t ear mark-- only exceptions are those brought to the attention of financial aid officer and given professional judgements to be excluded. If audited, the request is for your account balances and asseta to be listed as of the day you filled out he FAFSA. So it’s a very unlucky thing if your stock values plummet the day after you report a high market value. Too bad, they won’t adjust. You get the adjustment nextyear. I think the value should be on 12/31 instead of an arbitrary day, but no one cares about my opinion.

So you will very likely be getting federal aid in the financial aid package. That’s all some of us get if the need is small. Work study and Subsidized student loans.