NYU fin aid for 0 efc

[sk8rmom]

<p>Forgive me, calmom, but I omitted the word “fair” from my statement on how your business became the subject of a FAFSA correction…your explanation of that was 150 posts ago (this thread has gone on waaaayy too long) and I didn’t feel like wading through all of the lenthy posts since then. I wasn’t assuming that you made a FAFSA error, I was actually basing that on information you had provided, and an error was clearly made when you did not enter a FAIR value for your business. This is what you actually said:</p>

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I’ve had worse than a 1040a override show up on a FAFSA – when my son was in college, the FAFSA still required that business assets be stated, no matter how small the business. I am a self-employed freelancer. Since the only equipment i own for my business is computer, printer, phone, etc. – I valued my business at roughly $1500, the fair market value of the stuff I had that I could sell. My son’s college went in and changed that figure to $35,000 – when I asked how I could possibly have a business worth $35K, they explained that they were assigning an asset “value” equivalent to my prior year’s net income from self employment – if I netted $35K in a year from my business, then my business must be “worth” $35K.

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<p>One would not normally compute FMV, which was the number FAFSA required in 06, for an ongoing business based solely on the value of office equipment and accounts receivable. What your S’s college did was use an imputed value to correct an error or inconsistency and it does not seem that 1x NIBT was an unfair assessment, although it may be a very simplistic approach. Your D’s college did not correct the inconsistency, as required, and seems to have only made it worse.</p>

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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?

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<p>I think you are making an assumption here…I did not say anthing of the sort. I do feel that I have a fairly good grasp of both the spirit and the letter of the law, as it was written and intended it to be applied. I can find nothing to suggest that PJ was ever intended to give FAA’s a sword to cut aid to those who are otherwise legally entitled to receive it and can find a great deal of information suggesting the exact opposite is true.</p>

<p>

I explained why they didn’t do that in post #330, quoting from an article a finaid.org published in 2005. If they change the AGI, it triggers changes other formulas that rely on the AGI for calculation, like state tax tables. In any case, if they had changed AGI, it very well may still have made her Pell eligible, since the income was reduced in any case --so I don’t get how you consider it “fraudulent” to subtract the number out in one field rather than another.</p>

<p>In any case the law expressly allows them to change any “data element”. Any field with a number in it is a “data element”.

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<p>It’s interesting that you stopped reading/quoting just short of this part:</p>

<p>“In addition, you can’t adjust data elements or the cost of
attendance solely because you believe the tables and formula are
generally not adequate or appropriate. The data elements that are
adjusted must relate to the student’s special circumstances.”</p>

<p>Did you actually have a state tax liability that would have made an AGI adjustment inappropriate? If so, it seems that the taxes paid field would have been adjusted to reflect that but $12K in state taxes at your income level seems unlikely and certainly well above what the FAFSA formula would have calculated. What is this mysterious Schedule A item related to? For most items on Schedule A it would seem appropriate to follow the guidance and adjust AGI and thereby avoid “double dipping”, ie. benefitting from the formula allowances like state taxes that are already inflated due to post-AGI adjustments while also adding an additional adjustment for income taxes that are unrelated to the special circumstance. I believe this was the reasoning behind the example they gave related to medical expenses.</p>

<p>Anyway, this thread has gone too far afield of what the original debate was and I think it’s time to call it quits when you’re feeling personally attacked and inclined to make snide remarks to other members. I don’t think anyone called you a liar, and I certainly did not mean to personally attack anyone…to me, it was simply an interesting debate on the role of professional judgement as it related to STEVE and whether PJ could ever be used to DENY federal aid that a student was otherwise qualified for. As I said, I have no dog in this fight and, after reading hundreds of articles, emails, and posts related to special circumstances over the years, researching both the laws and the relevant regs, and discussing the matter with other FAA’s, and coming across only one person (calmom) at a single school that has had a clear case of PJ in the absence of an appeal or any other discussion with the recipient or family, I think it’s safe to assume, if you will allow me to do so, that your case was an unusual occurence and may not be the firmest ground upon which to render an opinion of what is likely to occur at other schools, especially when discussing the use of PJ in a way that is contrary to other federal laws and regualtions.</p>