<p>I just received an email from FAFSA telling me that the financial aid administrator (or something like that) at my school made changes to my aid application, increasing my EFC by nearly $3K. I have no idea what is going on, as I haven't gone to my aid application since February and I haven't sent an enrollment deposit to any school yet. Can someone explain this to me?</p>
<p>Did it say what school? All colleges can make corrections which I found out was sometimes numerous, maybe one found a small error. I know fafsa told me what the colleges did when I called. For instance one school just switched "will file " to “Filed tax return” which showed up as a correction. My daughters hadn’t picked that college and never sent a deposit.
You can call or chat online to find out.</p>
<p>Print off your original SAR and the new one and go through line by line to see what has been changed.</p>
<p>Any school you send FAFSA to can adjust your FAFSA data if they believe you have made an error. Were you selected for verification anywhere? Of had to send tax documents to any school?</p>
<p>No, it only said “your school”. Would a “small error” or merely having completed tax returns really increase one’s EFC by nearly $3K?</p>
<p>I haven’t been selected for verification but I did have to send tax documents to two of the schools I got accepted to.</p>
<p>Could be that one of them saw something on your tax documents that was at odds with what you put on FAFSA.</p>
<p>Print the 2 SARS off and compare them.</p>
<p>It’s time consuming, but you should see something…or try chatting with a fafsa customer service aid online. That worked for me once, and it wasn’t busy at night, just a few minutes. He actually told me a month or two ago, what colleges had done a year ago when my twins applied…not that it mattered now, but was interesting.</p>
<p>I just compared the new SAR with the old one, and the school increased both of my parents’ incomes a few thousand each, but I’m pretty sure we recorded them exactly as they appeared on my parents’ tax returns.</p>
<p>If you are sure it wasn’t estimated, you can check into it, I would be interested in what college it was…if only one or more.</p>