ok. for future people asking about pheaa, this is what i learned. pheaa wanted us to complete rest of paperwork anyway. so we did and it’s on the way to pheaa. they were very nice but could not answer my underlying question of is my kid even likely to be eligible at all until they had the missing info, which was my spouse’s SSN. as a footnote, pheaa had all of our financial data available, including spouse’s income, which was on fafsa and we sent in fafsa after we completed tax return.
we also called son’s university, which is Temple, and i mention this as other schools may handle this differently. when Temple posts its financial aid award letter, it will list its best estimate of what a pheaa grant would be. since nothing was posted in my son’s case, Temple does not expect my son to be eligible for a pheea grant. lessons from this; make sure you put both parent’s SSN’s on the FAFSA if you and/or your child is a pennsylvania resident. although FAFSA only requires one parent’s SSN, PHEAA requires both and not having both will tie up the PHEAA process. yes, it appears to be an easy fix but it still adds time to overall process. also, if you want to contact anyone for clarification, it has to be done during normal business hours. again, not suprising but it took me awhile to get hold of anyone at Temple. better to call both pheaa and a school’s financial aid office in the morning. when we get an official response from pheaa, i will repost. also, communicate with your school’s financial aid office when an issue arises. other schools may handle the pheaa grant issue differently(it sounds like some wait for a notification from pheaa before they mention the grant possibility).
yes, i realize a lot of this sounds very basic to those on the outside looking in. however, in looking up pheaa grants on CC, i found earlier posts with parents who were having trouble getting more detailed info from pheaa and asking for help so this issue comes up at times. my hope is my info here will help others down the road.