My daughter received an email with the message below today. She has not yet committed to any of the 6 schools she applied to. I went on the FAFSA page and tried to figure out why a change was made (our EFC increased by $3,000) and which school made the change but was unsuccessful. Stranger still is she has a twin sister, and her EFC remains at the original number that was stated in October 2021. No updates or changes have been made for her twin. Any insight?
This FAFSA correction was made by the financial aid staff at your school. If you think you need to make additional corrections, contact your school’s financial aid office before doing so.
I called the help line. They said they’re unable to see which school made the change. The only way to find out would be to call every school my daughter applied to.
Try calling again, but wait until late next week … maybe the transaction hasn’t completed processing yet. It will definitely be ready to view in a week. It’s also possible that the rep you talked with just wasn’t trained on how to view that information. Some reps are more helpful than others.
Same exact thing happened to me. I spent an hour on the phone with FASFA and they claim there is no way to know which school made the change. Which seems really crazy. Like zero audit trail or way to confirm that the change made is even correct.
The FAFSA processor has absolutely no oversight regarding changes made by schools. FAFSA helpline personnel have absolutely nothing to do with oversight. Schools are required by law to update the FAFSA if they have any information that indicates the information on the FAFSA is incorrect. It can be as simple as a student saying that they are going to live off campus when all students at that school have to live on campus, or a student who says that they are not first-time in college when they actually are. Schools monitor for information & make updates. If they collect financial information from families, and if anything doesn’t match what is on the FAFSA, the school is required by law to change the FAFSA. Believe me, there is plenty of oversight, provided by Federal Student Aid (and annual audits). Compliance is extremely important & is taken very seriously by schools.
right, but I’ve read enough cases where the change made actually ended up not being correct. My concern is that without an audit trail as to WHO made the change and even better WHY ( but I know why would be difficult) how can the system be deemed as good as it should be. At least if we knew who we could call and understand or get it corrected. That’s what I meant by oversight. And of course if you only applied to just a few schools it’s not as huge a deal but that’s usually not the case either. Sigh……
You can call each school to find out if they made a change. If they say yes, you can ask them what it was & whether it changed the EFC. Most updates I made through the years did not change the EFC. Of those that did, every one of them was correct in my estimation - although once I updated the wrong FAFSA & realized it quickly (I had to wait until the change processed & then fixed it). I know from anecdotal evidence that some changes made may be incorrect, but the mistakes are pretty rare. Usually, what I hear about on CC are errors that are global (as the scholarship/co-op income situation appears to be this year) or issues such as the messy way rollovers are handled on the FAFSA.
Sometimes. It depends how the school processed it. I think that they would get the updated transaction. The student could log in & see if there is a subsequent transaction (#2, if the student only touched the FAFSA once). If so, run the Student Aid Report for prior & subsequent transactions. If the EFC didn’t change, I don’t think it’s worth looking further. If it did, though, compare line by line to see what has changed.