<p>I got an email telling me that my son's college made a change to his FAFSA. It isn't a change with any practical consequence for me; it lowered his EFC by a little, but didn't change his existing partial Pell grant.</p>
<p>I'm just curious what it is. I signed on to FAFSA and looked at his new SAR and saw the lower EFC, but that's all I can see. Is there a way, short of calling the FA office and asking them, what the change was? I don't want to bother them since it seems like an immaterial thing. I'm just curious, is all.</p>
<p>It seems to me that anytime we have submitted a change, the SAR displays an asterisk next to the field that was changed…idk if that happens when schools submit the changes as none have done so for us.</p>
<p>You should be able to go line by line in your FAFSA to see what was changed. Did you happen to print out your FAFSA when you submitted it? Is this for the current school year? Seems sort of late to be making changes for this year…</p>
<p>If you go to FAFSA they will have both your original FAFSA and the adjusted one available there. (I think they call them transaction numbers, but not sure off hand). You can print them both off an do a line by line comparison.</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s for this 2010-11 year. It seemed late in the year to me also… but what do I know? I’ll try printing off the different versions to find out what it was. Weird. I’ve read a bunch of posts here about people getting their FAFSAs changed by the college, but it had never happened to me before (both my kids are juniors now), so I suddenly found myself in that boat, saying… whaaaat? :p</p>
<p>Just check. It also could be a mistake. We got a letter saying our FAFSA had been changed AND DD was not getting one of her federally funded loans in the amount she had been awarded. Turned out someone had goofed…had entered info incorrectly and we then got another letter saying it was all a mistake and the original award was accurate. This happened during the fall term…we thought that was odd too. So do check. Mistakes do happen.</p>
<p>Wow, I had a heck of a time getting back into the detailed FAFSA report --not the SAR page, that was easy-- but for some reason it wasn’t letting be at the more specific data…</p>
<p>anyway, finally did it and the change that the college made was a big increase in Parent Education Credits. I believe that number had to do with the fact that I was also taking a few college classes in 2009 (I’m full-time for this year, but they wouldn’t have anyway of knowing that), and I had some Lifetime Learning Credit on last year’s tax return. It wasn’t much – a little over $300 – but they changed it to $2803. Hmmm? I wonder why that is.</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s what made the EFC drop a little, I guess. Strange.</p>
<p>Parent Education Credits? Do you mean Education Tax Credit? That is line 49 on the 1040. People leave that at 0 all the time on FAFSA — updating it to the correct amount often results in a small EFC change. That is a data item that must be updated during verification. If the EFC is still in the same 100-band, the Pell amount is not affected.</p>
<p>What I’m looking at on the FAFSA site isn’t the actual FAFSA I originally filled out --I can’t figure out how to get to that, it doesn’t seem to want to let me go there-- but when I open the “View or Print your SAR”, on the left there are some menu items: Processing Information, Student Information, Student Income and Assets, Parent Information, and so forth. Looking at “Parent Information” there is a line item called “Parents’ Education Credits.” It wasn’t blank before, it had a smaller amount, but the number in it was changed by the college. I don’t know exactly what original question on the FAFSA this is drawn from, but it is the thing that was changed.</p>
<p>I was wrong before though, thinking the changed EFC had not changed the Pell grant. It actually did raise the Pell grant a little bit – not a significant amount, though.</p>
<p>Anyway… I don’t think it’s worth calling them. It really has no financial effect for us. It’s just interesting.</p>
<p>To see the FAFSA that you completed, selected Make Corrections to a Completed FAFSA in box #3.</p>
<p>The change that was made was an update to the Education Credits listed in the Parent Information Section of the FAFSA. You must have reported the incorrect amount that was on line 49 of your 2009 tax return (if you filed the 1040A, it’s on line 31). Look at your return … does the amount match the new value reported by the school? It should.</p>
<p>Bingo! Thanks, Kelsmon. That is it, the number that’s on line 49. When I’m filling out the FAFSA I just obediently follow instructions, “from line # __ on your 1040” – but I must have screwed that one up somehow. The clouds have parted now. ;)</p>