I just filed FASFA for the 2020-2021 year for my daughter. we have an adjusted gross income of 76500.00 I am on Social Security disability, I imported our taxes using the IRS tool, we have no other assets our EFC came back as 64640 which makes her ineligible for anything but an unsubsidized loan. what could have gone wrong?
Check all entries carefully, perhaps a decimal point is off somewhere. If you had a 401K rollover, that amount can be inadvertently included in income, if that section of the FAFSA is not filled in correctly.
Right…did you have a rollover of tax deferred retirement accounts? Unless the FAFSA is done carefully (there is a teeny box to check) this amount would be included as income.
To get this corrected if that is the case, you need to contact each college. They will ask you to provide documentation of the rollover amount.
Another thing to check…make sure you didn’t include your parent income and assets again in the student section. That happens sometimes as well.
And…do you have retirement savings in TSA or IRA or other retirement accounts? The balances in those accounts are not included as assets. Did you include those?
we do have a traditional IRA retirement account which is not supposed to be included in our assets, i didn’t see anything about it in the fasfa online
No retirement rollover in 2018?
Did you include the balance IN that retirement account in your assets when you completed the FAFSA?
With a $75,000 or so income, your daughter would likely not be eligible for federally funded grant aid. Just eligible for the Direct Loan.
But I agree something isn’t right.
Did you include the value of your primary residence as an asset?
Are you self employed?
Do you own real estate in addition to your primary residence…land, a farm, a rental property, anything like that?
If it were me, I would print out that FAFSA and go line by line. A misplaced decimal point could make $10,000 look like $100,000. Check each entry that you can check.
You won’t be able to check the entries that the IRS DRT imported, but you can check your tax return. Is there anything funny on that?
no rollover, did not put balance of ira in assets, did not include primary residence as an asset, no property. i am going over FASFA now
maybe an extra zero added on to kids savings or income?
Or not putting the decimal in at all. Making $1000.00 look like $10,000
Definitely something wrong as there because no way to get that EFC without a large dollar amount of assets with that total income
You say you have NO assets? None at all? No college savings? No regular savings? No checking account?
You said you did the IRS DRT - did you do it for your child, as well? If not, is it possible YOUR tax info was entered for your child? This would lead to a really high EFC. Suggestions about checking for a misplaced decimal are excellent. Also, you mentioned that you receive SS disability income. Did you report any SSI as untaxed income? If so, you can remove that from the FAFSA. See this link, https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/sites/default/files/2020-21-fafsa.pdf, #44h: Don’t include extended foster care benefits, student aid, earned income credit, additional child tax credit, welfare payments, untaxed Social Security
benefits, Supplemental Security Income …
we have a very small amount in our checking account at the moment and nothing in our savings, just have my retirement that i will begin drawing on next year
Did you find any errors when you checked your printed out FAFSA?
no but I cannot see numbers from the IRS
The IRS numbers came from your 2018 tax return. Check that for accuracy!
Really, the only thing I can think of is that you moved tax deferred retirement money from one account to another. Are you 100% positive you didn’t do that in 2018? Did anyone switch jobs?