Changes to EFC- All Fin Aid taken away

Paying for College
1

<p>Hello!
I am a Senior who is about to graduate in two months as of tomorrow, and I am currently in freakout mode. My family is not well off at all, we've had serious problems financially as well as personal issues within the family. My father is the only one working, and my mother lost her job about a year ago and hasn't been able to find a new one. I have a sister who also attends school full time. I've been pretty much alone on just about every part of the college process. I am eligible for reduced lunch, which qualified me for application fee waivers and SAT/ACT waivers. I am between four schools right now: University of Florida, Florida State, Rochester Institute of Technology, and University of Rochester. </p>

<p>My original EFC was a little over 2,000. That is about the right amount that my parents can squeeze out enough to give me, though even that is pushing it. The other day, I received this email: </p>

<p>"Dear MADISON,</p>

<p>Your FAFSA Correction has been processed and the data will be made available to the school(s) listed on your corrected FAFSA. The financial aid office at your school will contact you if additional information is required.</p>

<p>The Financial Aid Administrator (FAA) at your school has made corrections to your application. If you think you need to make additional corrections, please contact your FAA before doing so.</p>

<p>Your Student Aid Report (SAR), which contains a summary of your FAFSA information, is now available for you online. Review your SAR as soon as possible to see if any additional information or corrections may be needed. You must confirm the accuracy of the estimated income information you or your parent reported on your FAFSA after you complete your 2010 tax returns. After comparing the information on your FAFSA with the information on your tax return, you must correct any FAFSA information that is not accurate and you must also update FAFSA questions #32 (#79 for parents) to "already completed" to indicate that your information is now based on completed tax returns."</p>

<p>My EFC jumped from a little over 2,000 to nearly 18,000; a number that is completely impossible for my parents to pay. My parents have not completed their 2010 Tax Return yet, but I did send my 2009 tax returns to those four schools as requested by their financial aid office. I have no idea what to do as I've already lost my Financial Aid for both UF and FSU. I no longer qualify for a pell grant, state grant, or work study and I have no idea how I'm going to pay for school without taking out loans. I'm just completely lost at what to do. </p>

<p>Family's Gross Adjusted Income: $49,201
IRA: $18,000
Parents’ Untaxed Portions of Pensions: $54,580 (my mother has no idea where this number came from and its possible that it is an accounting error, but for the sake of expecting the worse leave as is)</p>

2

<p>You need to call the school FA department and find out about the untaxed pension portion. That is what’s killing you. Get more info and come back.</p>

3

<p>First off, your parents NEED to complete their 2010 tax returns bcos your fafsa EFC for fall '11 will be based on those returns. Whatever number the college and you are using now is an estimate, and it WILL change once the 2010 numbers are entered.</p>

<p>Until then, you really cannot know what the correct EFC is.</p>

<p>When you mom left her job last year, did she have a loan against her 401(k)? Did she receive a pension payout from her previous employer?</p>

4

<p>What is your sister’s EFC? Did she submit FAFSA this year?</p>

5

<p>That says IRA $18,000 Not EFC</p>

<p>But those numbers are not from your parents’ 2010 tax return. They need to fill out their tax form and then you can put those numbers into the FAFSA AND INDICATE THAT THEY FILED THEIR 2010 TAXES!</p>

<p>Why have they not prepared their return? It is best if you have accurate numbers and a 1040A (or 1040) form filled out when you talk to the school.</p>

6

<p>@bluebayou No, my mother was at the job for less then six months and she does not have a 401(k). My father though is a retired Us Coast Guardsmen, now State Trooper. However the number seems way too high. </p>

<p>@mom2collegekids My sister lives at home and is 23, but her EFC is 0. I did her FAFSA as well. </p>

<p>@mom4college My EFC is 17,982 but we have untaxed IRA of 18,000 that my mom cashed some of out as of last year. </p>

<p>As to why they haven’t done their tax returns: I don’t know. I’ve been asking since December to no avail. They have always gotten extensions on doing them as well. They aren’t very helpful, and my dad who manages the taxes is never home. But I’m the only person that seems to be worried.</p>

7

<p>Is your sister also waiting for parents to file 2010 tax form? Her 2009 EFC was 0, right?</p>

<p>Without your parents’ cooperation re: the numbers and filing their taxes, you are limited here.</p>

<p>Have you discussed this with your sister? Both of you will have a problem this Fall if your FA is delayed or is cancelled due to incomplete information.</p>

8

<p>Yes, but she also has Florida Prepaid (I do not) so FA is not a problem for her. I was able to get my dad working on it last night, so hopefully it’ll be done by next week. Do the FA packages still have time to change? I can’t pick a school by May 1st if I don’t know if I can afford it.</p>

9

<p>I’m confused. How does the sister have an EFC 0 with a pre-paid, while this student has an EFC of $18k with nothing?</p>

<p>Am I missing something?</p>

10

<p>It appears that the OP’s FAFSA was selected for verification by a college. In absence of the 2010 actual form, the 2009 one was used by the college. The OP needs to contact the financial aid office immediately, and those 2010 forms need to be completed and submitted ASAP. Though there is an extension by the government for those tax forms, the colleges don’t care. If you don’t get your return in, they will use whatever they feel is the next best thing which for this college is the 2009 form. They will still want the 2010 form to make an adjustment, but until it is done, submitted, and the college has processed it, you aren’t going to get that benefit. Some colleges will just give you zilch till that current tax return is done. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, most of the time, if a withdrawal was made from the IRA in that crucial year–in your case 20010, it will count as income. If your mother is not working this year 2011, the fin aid officer can make a displaced worker exception for you, but for 2010, if that IRA withdrawal was to make up for lost income, it counts as the lost income. They don’t care if it comes from the IRA or from the paycheck. If you got it, it counts. It’s only been recently that the displaced worker exception has been put in place for FAFSA.</p>

11

<p>since you’re applying to florida colleges, are you a florida resident? If you are, did you fill out the florida financial aid forms and apply for bright futures? This is definitely a must.</p>

12

<p>@sophiabutcher Yes, I have applied for Florida Aid and I have the highest Bright Futures Award. But that only amounts to $3400 a year, which is only a slight dent in UF’s COA which is about $20k. </p>

<p>I have new news: My FAFSA was reprocessed. The original corrections came from FSU, who added in my mother’s untaxed pension (which the amount is significantly lower now then it was in 2009 because she took out some of it, thank you @cptofthehouse for telling me about the displaced worker exception). Today, another school, RIT, made corrections and took out the pension entirely that FSU had added and it was reprocessed. My EFC now stands at $5,677. I am so confused, and a little worried if other schools might make further changes. But I was promised by my father that the taxes will be done by Monday, so yay!</p>

13

<p>We had a similar problem the year my S was applying to colleges. He applied to 10. Two of them in particular kept making incorrect changes to his FAFSA. It irked me to no end (and still does) that they can just go in and adjust a FAFSA w/o notifying the student first. After a school does this, the “new” EFC goes to all the other schools. Then, I would have to go back into the FAFSA and re-enter the correct numbers.</p>

<p>It was an incredible mess and took hours of wasted time on my part. To make matters worse, the main perpetrator was my alma mater! The two schools doing this were his lowest choice. Finally, a clerk at FAFSA told me to simply delete the schools so they couldn’t keep doing this. That did solve the problem for us. Thankfully, he chose a school with a wiser f/a dept. and we haven’t had the problem since.</p>

<p>Good luck. Agree w/ above posters to get those tax returns done ASAP and keep in contact with the f/a offices.</p>