Did you undergo loan counseling? If so, how was it arranged (with a financial aid officer at the college, private loan officer, online service...)
Did you run a calculator to determine payments on your expected loan amount?
Do you understand how to calculate interest? If not, did you ask for assistance?
Did you know how much you would owe when you graduated? If not, did you ask for clarification? If so and you were still unclear about what your debt load would be, why did you accept the loans?
Our FAFSA and Institutional EFC were both miscalculated this year to the tune of $2.5K. At first we did not question anything because who knows what the Institutional EFC should be but then I saw a FAFSA correction submitted by the school and noticed that they made a mistake. After a month of back and forth I made them undo their correction.
Schools have leeway to change your Fafsa and submit a correction. Sometimes the correction is in your favor, sometimes not. Good for you to get them to change it! That’s not a miscalculation, though. That’s a formula decision.
Schools only make profession judgement based on information you provide to them, and when you request it. His would include providing information to,support your request for professional judgement…and could include documentation of things like medical bills, or loss of parent income after FAFSA filing.
Financial aid officers DO make corrections to the FAFSA. They are required to do so when they find an error on the FAFSA when comparing to other info provided. They MUST correct any errors found.
No one has mentioned Net Price Calculators, found on college web sites. I’m leery of yet another article about issues and quoting some individuals who had problems, then stopping. That makes it feel sensationalist to me, trying to attract readers and whip up some outrage, without balance. Sorry. But the better service would be to include positive steps a family can take, educate readers. (And that might be a rather interesting appearance in a “woman’s magazine,” which can attract a different audience than, say, Forbes.)
It’s true some college “package loans,” meaning: they subtract student (and sometimes, Parent Plus) loan(s) from the “family contribution,” to make the bottom line look less. We spend a lot of time on CC advising kids and parents to use the NPC and to look for those loans in the aid offer, not to blindly assume. AND, to look at four year costs, not just first year. And to use online repayment calculators. And we recommend several good books that explain. And, and, and. And still, many don’t. I find it hard to point fingers in one direction only.
A bit of a rant: this isn’t high school where, for the majority, you just find the neighborhood school you belong to, they take you, you go. Colleges do have costs (just as other items on our wish list do.) The least expensive versions, usually community colleges, many kids don’t want. Well…
What you are failing to acknowledge is that financial offices, and the individuals that work in them are not perfect, and that not every situation is straight forward. Just because you have not personally experienced something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. The OP is asking for CC members with experience with certain issues to weigh in. It is a straight forward request and doesn’t lend itself to a debate.
I had a complicated financial situation when I was filling out the FAFSA for S1, and FWIW I am a CPA and I was still pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to properly fill it out. Not every family can just plug in numbers from their tax return or have IRS retrieval.
I finally figured out how to do it properly, but I don’t believe that the average person would have been able to do so. Out of 19 schools that I submitted the FAFSA to, one incompetent FA office decided to alter my information. The FA office never bothered to contact me for clarification, or even have the decency to send me an email letting me know they were making the changes.
In April when I was in a hotel room on an accepted student visit I received an email from FAFSA that my information had been changed. I had no idea what was going on, but after digging around for awhile in the form discovered which college was responsible and was able to see their changes. Their INCORRECT changes. This was not “professional judgement” but incorrect judgement and lack of knowledge on how to handle my circumstances. I sent a very detailed email, including line by line pasted instructions from the FAFSA to the college, and then followed up by phone. Sure, anyone can make a mistake but they never apologized or even acknowledged that they had made an error and took their sweet time responding. Since it was April this was extremely stressful so I changed my FAFSA to the original numbers because I was tired of waiting around for them to do so. Then they went back into my form and changed the numbers again to different but still incorrect figures, and then LOCKED me out of the form. I had to call FAFSA and have a representative delete the college and allow me access to my FAFSA to change the numbers back one more time. Again, I think the average person would have accepted the changes and paid too much due to someone else’s error. No other college ever questioned the accuracy of the input.
Another piece of sensational journalism looking for ancedotal evidence to confirm a foregone conclusion.
A better article would investigate how many families of college bound juniors and seniors are aware that all colleges have an NPC and further understand the difference in FASFA’s NPC and school’s NPC’s which may include info from CSS profile and/or possible merit aid.
How many new posters on either aren’t aware of NPC’s at all or confuse a FASFA net price with a zero cost at a school that uses CSS.
And as noted from previous posts, the data must be entered correctly and every NPC that I’ve used warns that anyone with business income will not get an accurate result. This includes rental property and sole proprietors who may take legitimate deductions that are disallowed by CSS profile.
We also had info changed, but the college was (and had been) very wiling to speak with me on various topics. Someone like kelsmom, a pro, would know more. But the college isn’t supposed to just go in willy-nilly and make changes because they feel like it. They are provided adjusted info (not sure whether it’s from the Fafsa folks or some other source) and required to correct to it. That’s what happened to us; I think it was about one D’s summer earnings. And they have a time frame to meet.
The general “rule” is that colleges can change the info they then run through their formulas. But, they need to treat all individuals within a category the same. Those categories, obviously, can vary. Some of this does come from professional judgment- not necessarily the official request for PJ. It can come from them reviewing, eg, your comments on the CSS “explanation” section. Or a discussion.
My school FAFSA correction story: student had work study earnings that were properly reported on FAFSA, question 44.c., so that the formula would then subtract that amount from student income, leading to a (slightly) better EFC. For some reason, the school changed this entry to $0, even though a W-2 (from the school!) had been provided as requested that confirmed the amount we entered as work study earnings was correct. After getting an informational email from FAFSA saying that a change had been made and seeing a higher FAFSA EFC than the student originally had, I emailed the school FA office and said “WTF? I can’t believe there’s any dispute about the student having these work study earnings.” To the school’s credit, I got a speedy reply saying “oops, sorry,” and it was changed back to the way it was/should have been.
It seems it is widespread that they initiate corrections without contacting students/parents for clarification. They just want to push the finaid package out as fast as possible.
Or they are counting the assets/income of a second parent plus step parent or asked a question about funds grandparents are planning to contribute. It’s not necessarily home equity or retirement income. It might be a non-protected asset such as the Jag in the driveway.
It seems it is widespread that they initiate corrections without contacting students/parents for clarification. They just want to push the finaid package out as fast as possible.
Ouch. And I would dispute this assertion wholeheartedly. I have attended many financial aid conferences, both at the state and national level. The profession is filled with people whose goal is to help students afford to attend college, to the extent they are able to do so.
I agree that mistakes happen. I agree that there are those who are not as well-trained as they could be, and I agree that there is a random finaid professional here & there who interprets things in a way with which I would not agree. But that occurs in every profession. When it does in financial aid, it can have a very negative impact … which is why I am all for helping the general public understand how it all works. Giving people the tools to understand when something seems not-quite-right is a good thing. Encouraging people to “take it to the top” is a good thing. Knowledge is power.
But that doesn’t equate to problems being “widespread.”
Sorry, @kelsmom , maybe I was unduly harsh. Did not mean to hurt feelings of all finaid community that is probably overworked and underpaid. I have no issues with questioning submitted info however it would be nice if they contact us before initiating these changes. Probably there is no process to put the package on hold while waiting for the reply so the package is either done or not done and “not done” is not good.
