<p>I have heard about a certain background check that colleges use on about 30% of randomly selected freshman students to see if they were being truthful about their financial situation and then expelling the students who they exposed.</p>
<p>Is this legitimate?</p>
<p>Er, I don’t know what you mean. When you apply for financial aid from a college, they want ALL of your financial info and, yes, you do have to agree to provide verification of what you list which is just about everyhing if you are asked. They do get access to your family tax forms, sometimes for 2 years and will want bank statements at time as well. If you want consideration for financial aid, and if you want the money, yes, you have to agree to whatever they ask. Otherwise they don’t care about your financial situation. Only if you want money from them. </p>
<p>I’ve yet to hear of a student being expelled when things don’t check out, but lots of students get their aid packages changed when things are not exactly as reported. You often start out estimating what your family income is, and when your tax forms are filed, they are checked and the awards often adjusted. So you lose out or don’t get the money if things don’t check out.</p>
<p>If fraud is expected, yes, a student can get into trouble, deep trouble, because federal forms and money is often involved and the government has a long reach right into your refund checks, and even bank accounts, and it is a federal offence to lie on those forms, which the college gets as well. </p>
<p>This isn’t just 30% of students, by the way. With the new IRS retrieval system in place, everyone is easily verified now. ALl done by computer and automatically.</p>
<p>This isn’t just 30% of students, by the way. With the new IRS retrieval system in place, everyone is easily verified now. ALl done by computer and automatically.</p>
<p>This will save everyone money because eventually less time will need to be spent on verification. Less opportunity for fraud so aid can be given to the families that need it the most and it should make the process faster & more transparent.</p>
<p>Colleges may be correcting FAFSAs more often for a while once they have tax info for everyone who applies for aid.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like the OP may be referring to verification of FAFSA information. While anyone who uses the DRT through the IRS website is somewhat verified, the actual amounts of their assets are still input manually. I would certainly hope that any fraud detected through the verification process would certainly lead to cancellation of any planned financial aid, and I suppose rescinding an admissions offer or expelling a student is also within the realm of possibility.</p>
<p>Verification used to take place by submission of hard copy tax forms.
Doesnt the retrieval process confirm the same information electronically?</p>
<p>Yes, the DRT is used instead of the paper verification - and it won’t allow any … er … “doctored” tax returns. There is a code that lets the aid officer know if values were changed after the DRT was used, as well (in which case, a tax transcript is required to be submitted). This applies only to those who are selected for verification for income purposes … there may be other reasons for verification, and even if selected based on income, family size and # in college must also be verified. It is true that a family that uses DRT from the initial filing is less likely to be selected for income verification than a student who files without using DRT (or one who plans to use DRT after filing but has not yet filed). And there still may be reasons for collecting the paper return (such as the need to resolve conflicting information).</p>