My son received the Pell Grant Award based on the initial FAFSA application. Since no financial information was available at the time of the Fall 2016 semester the school had us file the extension form and disbursed the Pell Grant amount for Fall and requested a IRS tax trabscript to be sent when available.
I was then informed I would not be required to file and contacted the FA office who advised us that we needed to go back to the FAFSA online and submit the corrections. With the now Soring 2017 semester approaching they recommended we pay out of pocket to avoid disenrollment and as soon as the new FAFSA was processed and they received the ISIR if it did not change the EFC then we would get the balance of the award back as a refund for the out of pocket payment. So we did this.
When we made the FAFSA corrections the FAFSA rep confirmed the school would receive the corrected information in time and that as long as they received a valid output document (ISIR) by Sept 30,2017 we were fine. The last date the Federal Register accepted the corrections was Sept 23,2017.
Well before then we got confirmation by email of the new SAR with EFC -0- and itvwas not flagged for verification. It stated the school would have their confirmation the next day. That’s when we began contacting FA office to confirm receipt and if anything was needed. We realize a school can choose to do a verification even if not flagged from processing. With no replies and September approaching we wentbin oetson and left copies of everythjng with them. The staff in FA told us that because it was a corrected FAFSA only the FA Director could help us. We had already been messaging her with no reply.
We escalated to the office of the president. At this point the FA Director replied stating she had not meant to ignore our other attempts to reach her but that the deadline had now passed and she never got the IRS tax transcript requested in the Fall. I reminded her that we had needed a correction to the FAFSA and there was no IRS transcript because we corrected to a non-filing status.
We had no indication on thevSAR a verification was needed and never heard from the school after the new ISIR was received. She did not reply. This was again escalated for help and her supervisor replied who is the General Financial Director for the Univetsity. He assured me he would look into the matter a get back to me in a few days. When I did not hear after a week I reached out to him again. He apologized for the delay and said he would be out of town on school business for a week but get back to me upon his return.
Two more weeks go by and no reply. I contact him and his response was " the deadline for the year has passed and no more disbursements can be made. Please try to focus on the graduation of your son and his accomplishments as well as his bright future so that you leave here in a positive note".
I’m sorry but $5,000 is our out of pocket expense and refund from the already awarded amount we were eligible for. I did reply I wanted to know what the appeal process is and he said there is none. I find this hard to believe. Please I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to get help from anyone other than the university.
The fafsa for this current year 2017-2018 was available in October 2016 using 2015 tax year information.
Spring 2017 was part of the 2016-2017 academic year…that was LAST year…not this year.
Please clarify your post.
Did you submit the 2017-2018 FAFSA or not? The Pell Grant is an entitlement. The fafsa can be completed anytime during THIS academic year to receive that. Schools don’t run out of Pell funds. Those are federal.
I am still trying to resolve a 2016-2017 award year issue. Regardless of the academic year I suppose I looking for the same information. A school has to bear some responsibility if they have protocols not followed. So I guess I am looking for an answer to :
If a correction is made to a FAFSA application and a school receives a valid output document within the academic year, would they be required to acknowledge the receipt of the corrected ISIR and notify the student either a disbursement was to follow or if any verification documents were needed ( and what happens if they fail to do so).
The overview is we did all of this but the school failed to complete the process of their end and the deadline for disbursement has passed and their must be recourse for this. The school is telling me there is no appeals process also.
Thanks !!
I think the school gave you very bad information, but it is possible to not file the tax forms, go into the FAFSA and change the status to ‘did not file/do not intend to file’ (which it sounds like what you did) and then get an IRS non-filer statement to give to the school (which it sound like you did NOT do). That’s the verification that the school wanted, the non-filer verification.
It was your responsibility to get them that document.
What can they do now? They can’t give you a Pell grant. They could go back and either waive the tuition for that period or give you a school grant.
@kelsmom please correct me if I’m wrong. I believe it’s too late to change financial aid for 2016-2017…
The 2016-2017 academic year ended LONG ago. I believe any resolutions for that academic year needed to be done during THAT academic year. The school cannot award you aid for an academic year that has ended. You can ask at your college…but I believe this would include any aid awarded by the college…as well as federally funded aid.
You knew this was an issue during THAT academic year…and that is when it should have been resolved.
The student is responsible for monitoring all that relates to financial aid…first and foremost.
It doesn’t sound like you all were on top of this when you needed to be…which was the 2016-2017 academic year,
The student did. As stated above we were both making inquiries as soon as the confirmation of the corrected SAR emailed to him. He even went in person and staff stated only the FA Director could handle this. She even acknowledges his emails inquiries before the deadline but had ignored them. Then replied the deadline passed. Staff in the office told him after the corrections were processed and they got confirmation it would appear in his FA offers to accept if no verification was required or in his to do list side if flagged for verification. Neither happened.
The Federal Register lists Sept 23, 2017 as the last date corrections can be made for the 2016-2017 award year and it was done and processed before then. I listed that info in first post too. So it was not too late on our end.
The school did not ask for any verification when the new SAR/ISIR was sent to them. We were told by both FA and FAFSA that after thevcorrection was made thevschool would iniducate what they will require. We actually did leave a non filers letter we proactively requested from IRS and left it at FA office the day my son went in person but they are not recognizing they even got the new ISIR with the non filing status and we gave them a copy of the SAR. They are just refusing to recognize they dropped the ball. Isn’t there an appeals process or complaint process for this ? Isn’t a school obligated to inform a student of those rights?
I still don’t understand. When was that 2016/17 FAFSA filed? And you said 2015 financial information was not available at the start of the Fall 2016 semester? So wouldn’t you have known before August 2016 if you were going to have to file a tax return or not?
I had my own business and my fiscal year would have had us normally filing an extension and submitting in October. When the business taxes were completed my accountant informed me due to the dissolution of the business in 2015 the income bracket did not require a filing. We did notify the school of this in writing and if we would need to make changes to the FAFSA or just IRS confirmation. That’s created a delay that brought us to Spring registration 2017 when FA recommended we pay out of pocket to make sure there was no disenrollment and as long as the corrections happened before September 2017 we were ok and would get a refund. They first told us we could submit a letter stating the changes and that the school could make the corrections. That didn’t happen and pushed us out to May 2017 waiting and the in June 2017 we submitted the ciortecrions ourself. Then we chased FA down July Aug and into Sept but they received the updated ISIR way before the deadline The original FAFSA was submitted in Feb 2016. The corrections made June 2017.
So you had less than $400 in self employment income from the business in 2015? Isn’t that the threshold for having to file a tax return and pay self employment tax?
And that was the only income for you (and spouse, if married) for the year?
Then how did you pay the $5,000 for the school? Did you borrow the money?
You should file a tax return for 2017 so that you can maybe claim the AOTC for the money paid out of pocket.
Both 2016-2017 AND 2017-2018 FAFSA forms used the 2015 tax year. If a change was made for 2016-2017, this would automatically trigger a review of 2017-2018, I believe…because those FAFSA forms should have the same tax year information on them.
I’m guessing that is why you are having issues with THIS year disbursement.
I am simply looking for an answer to the question: Does a school have an obligation to notify a student when it receives a new ISIR and who do I go to outside the university for help if they have made an error?
NOT having a problem with this year. I posted that this was concerning 2016-2017. just want to know who to contact if having issues with the schools FA dept and not getting any resolution.