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Sk8rmom, it is very apparent to me that you really do not understand what professional judgment is. </p>
<p>You say that you requested it based on medical expenses from a college – after you submitted all the paperwork, did they grant your request? Did they change the FAFSA? Where did they put the change on the form? </p>
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NO, the rules for professional judgment specifically authorize the schools to CHANGE the data when they have (a) special circumstances and (b) documentation. That is all they need. “Documentation” can be minimal – it could be one entry on one line of a tax formm. “Special circumstances” is anything that distinguishes that student from other similarly situated students. It does not have to be something that is rare, just something that makes the student different and doesn’t apply to a whole class of students.</p>
<p>I have quoted and linked and quoted and linked to the LAW and to the MANUAL issued by the Dept. of Education to financial administrators. I don’t know what more I can do. But the whole point of “professional judgment” is that the college financial aid officers are expressly authorized, by law, to change the data in any field on the form. There are no fields on the form to subtract out things like medical expenses - so by definition when they are exercising professional judgment they have to change the data in a field on the form to be something different than what it would be if totally accurate.</p>
<p>And of course it can impact eligibility for federal benefits. Why else would the federal government even care? If the EFC goes down, then eligibility may be increased. If circumstances mean that the EFC goes up, then eligibility may be reduce.</p>
<p>That’s just how it works. I’m sorry if you don’t believe it, but that’s how it has been set up. I’m sorry if you don’t believe me, but I hope other people reading this thread will be intelligent enough to actually read the material that I’ve linked to. I didn’t write the law, I’ve only quoted it.</p>