EFC Skrewup and Now I'm Sad & Confused

Paying for College
1

Alright, so I completed the FAFSA like a month after it opened, right? My parents filed jointly for 2019 but they were recently separated by the time I filled out the FAFSA, so we mistakenly put them down as still being married and making $60,000 together.

I get back my FAFSA and my EFC is around $4,500 with maybe $1,800 in Pell Grants. Okay, that’s doable!

Until, months later, I approach NC state with a question and they inform me that (basically): “Yeah you did the FAFSA wrong,” and they submit a request for a revision on my behalf. It gets accepted and processed and apparently sent out, with no request for action on my part for like three weeks.

By this point, my EFC is around $1800 and I’m eligible for around $4,500 in Pell Grants, I guess because now only my dad and his income is listed. Cool! I mean, I know they’ll still take the CSS profile into account, with both my parent’s finances reported there, but still good news.

Yeah, until they suddenly email me a couple of days ago saying “action is needed”. They want me to review the FAFSA and everything looks good, 1 parent (as requested), everything else transferred from IRS. I was thinking maybe they just wanted some confirmation.

Suddenly, I check again and my EFC is now $6,500 and I’m NOT eligible for any federal aid. What the hell? I’m furious. The website says that the “marital status doesn’t match what’s reported at the IRS.” Like, yeah. I know that??? That’s how I filed it originally (saying my parents were married when they were actually recently legally separated because they filed as a married couple) and I was wrong.

What is going on? My parents make about $60,000 combined. They are separated, as I’ve said, and my dad is the primary caretaker (financially speaking) and he made about $40,000 in 2019. Why is my EFC so comparatively high now???

I plan on contacting them soon to hopefully resolve this but I’m just so confused and disheartened.

We have no significant assets, no business, etc. No kind of extenuating circumstance. My dad is a CNA and my mom is a TA/Teacher. So we’re not poor but not wealthy by any stretch of the word. (Not that a $6,500 EFC indicates huge wealth, but it’s just bigger than the OG number with both of their incomes reported so?)

2

I don’t think it’s a screwup but get ready for a lot of paperwork ad phone calls, I’m afraid, in order to get everything straightened out.
@kelsmom: any idea?

3

Parents were married and filed jointly in 2019? If they are now separated, you can’t use the IRS data retrieval tool. The income has to be manually input. I assume that is what the initial financial aid advisor did, which resulted in the lower EFC. It sounds like a change was made, and it overrode the changes the aid officer made. Contact the aid officer who helped you initially, and ask for help in straightening things out. I am guessing that the lower EFC may be correct, and the aid officer can fix things on their end.

3 Likes
4

The aid officer as in the NC State person I spoke with?
@kelsmom EDIT: Yes, you are correct. I suspected that might be the culprit but I wasn’t sure.

5

Is NC State the only school you are dealing with?

6

No, but they are the only major school I’ve applied to that has offered me a financial package so far. They are also the first school I had to fill out the verification stuff for, hence the questions being directed towards them.

I’ve also been accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill (in-state + my preferred school out of the places I’ve been accepted)) and am awaiting news from Duke, Cornell, and Vandy.

7

Did you do an IRS data transfer after the changes made by NC State? Did you submit tax returns to any of the schools, and if so, did you submit an explanation about the separation?

It’s possible you will need to contact each school to make sure your situation is properly reflected so they don’t add back your mom’s income.

8

Not manually, but it was what was in the system. So the FAFSA was basically requesting that I confirm the info that was there and it said “transferred from the IRS”, so I assumed that was in line with the changes made by NC State so I confirmed. Then boom, increase.

I did. Tax returns and W-2 and all that jazz, and a separation document, although not one necessarily explaining what went wrong with the FAFSA.

Do you think I’ll still get Pell Grants, if that’s the case?

I think I’ll contact the FAFSA people directly and maybe the NC State advisor I spoke with to see if someone can get this fixed for me, or can at least walk me through the steps of fixing it myself.

1 Like
9

The FAFSA people won’t be able to help fix it. If you sent all of the information to the schools, they will eventually fix things. You will not be able to fix the income yourself, because once you use the IRS transfer, you can’t many changes yourself. I think contacting the person you worked with at NC State is your best move.

2 Likes
10

Okay. I’ll do that shortly. Well, thanks for the help.
I hope I don’t get shortchanged aid :confused:

11

It’s the job of the financial aid office to make sure that all of your information is correct. As long as they have all of your relevant information, your federal aid will be straightened out eventually.