On the CSS Profile they have a section that you enter your projected earnings for the upcoming year. If that number will be significantly less, would it be prudent to call the school and retract the information. My crystal ball went askew when I got pink slipped from one of my jobs that is about 50% of my projected income.
There is a place to explain things on the Profile. You could put an explanation there.
And yes, you could call the school. But with prior prior being used…I would imagine they will hope you find a new job in the next two years.
Profile has long been done for this year obv. I doubt I’ll find another job that pays even close to what this one did. I wasn’t even looking when it fell into my lap last October and was so flexible that I was able to keep my regular full time job as well. I would think they’ll use my actual income for 2016 when figuring the 2018-2019 school year finaid, no?
Yes. The 2018-2019 FAFSA and Profile will use the 2016 tax year information.
Yes, but with a small college, I’d talk to them, see what comes of it. There’s a small grey area this may fit.
Friend had a similar issue, different college.
If they’ll use my actual income from 2016 its all good. I had three months in this job for 2015 with which will be used for the next two years and then five months in 2016 for the last year, so it’ll be similar numbers hopefully…and I won’t know what those numbers are until the finaid comes out in the next couple of months. Guess I’ll worry about it then. On the positive side, I put every cent of that “extra” income into my 401K and 529 and considered it bonus $$. I had a feeling when I was offered the job that the company wasn’t on solid footing and thank goodness that I decided to keep my long term present job (even though the other paid far more). Another positive note…I was starting to really feel the burden of working 55 hours/week and could use a bit of a rest lol.
If you are impacted for the current year, you can file a change of circumstances appeal, or for the fall term. Most schools have a way to do that on the FA page on the web.
I think this is going to be a funny year. With the change to prior prior, it is very possible,that lots of people will have changes because of the two year look back…and perhaps changes in 2016.
However, the 2016 tax year will be used for the following year finaid forms.
I have to wonder whether schools will be less likely to consider these 2016 changes in light of the new prior prior thing.
We (luckily) don’t have to be included on the FAFSA…but we thought we did for one kid. Our 2015 income was $30,000 higher than our 2014 and 2016 incomes. Our kid inquired about this…and the school politely told her that the 2016 income would be used for,the following year…and they were not likely to consider reduced incomes unless it was clearly a hardship case (sole breadwinner lost job…or something like that).
I thought there was a way to amend the CSS? Can you still do that? I think you may have to mail it to the schools or something. I would definitely make them aware. Especially if you used 2015 since the last 3 months of 2015 will not continue at this point.
That was from a college web site. I would assume your kid’s would have their own instructions.
You need to contact each school to find out if or how to amend a filed Profile form.
- Some will just want you to link to the IRS Data Retrieval too pl with your FAFSA once your taxes are filed.
- Some use IDOC and will want documents sent that way.
- Some will want a printed copy with the corrections written in.
But this poster is NOT talking about a correction to a filed Profile. This poster wants to indicate a difference in incime for the 2016 year because it will be lower than the 2015 year. That is NOT a Profile correction. That would be a request for a special circumstances consideration.
This goes into the OTHER information that the school I quoted from will accept corrections on. The IDOC process or IRS Data is irrelevant to the OP’s issue since the question is on projected income for 2016.
I would correct the anticipated 2016 income (in whatever way the school permits) and in the explanation/additional information box let them know that 2015 income is inflated by X due to a part time job that has ended through no fault of your own.
You should let them know. They may not do anything now, but if it stretches on to the fall, then you have told them. One of my kids’ schools gave us more money mid-year one time when we had an unexpected big financial (employment) hit after the FA paperwork was in for the year. I didn’t actually expect it – I was communicating with them about something else, don’t recall what, and it came up. They said to send the proof, and upped my kid’s FA for that year. Obviously would not happen at every (maybe not most) schools, but it is a possibility. I might do it via email so you have a paper trail of the communication later.
I understand the change to prior-prior and how it makes the process easier and earlier. But for some people, it was a bit of a nasty thing – changing the rules in the middle of the game. They announced the change to use 2015 income of fall of 2017 freshman in Sept 2015. Some people sold stocks or took early bonuses in 2015 (but before Sept) specifically so that would be water-under-the-bridge for their 2017-2018 FAFSA, and suddenly and unexpectedly it counts against them.
Supposedly schools have been told to be lenient in this change-over year if 2015 income can be proved out of line, at least according to news articles published at the time – for example, this one from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2015/09/14/obama-announces-fafsa-change-to-make-college-aid-decision-earlier-and-easier
Maybe the same is true with general income changes? A lot can change in a family’s situation between Dec 2015 and Sept 2017!
Yes…and the change in income in 2016 would apply to the next FAFSA and Profile.
I agree, there are going to be some bumps this year.