<p>My DS applied to several schools and was accepted to 3, he submitted verification to all 3 in March. After reviewing all financial aid awards, he made his choice and notified both other schools in writingon April 20th that he would not be enrolling.</p>
<p>Current university verified and all was well until today. One of the schools he withdrew from corrected his FAFSA today, adding net assets for parents in the amount of 42K. I do not have savings, 401K or other investments except for a rental property that is under water. I take a loss n property. The school valued at 42K, which is fairly accurate, but assumed their was no mortage, but in fact a 80K mortgage. Call financial aid office of the school that corrected and sent them a mortgage statement to verify. They claim they changed the FAFSA back in April, but FAFSA states it was done by them today. They also state they cannot fix because my DS is not enrolled.</p>
<p>The current university he in enrolled in is baffled, not sure why they would make this change, as they completely verified me. Now I lost pell grant.</p>
<p>Need guidance on best place to start to untangle this. School that made change is very un cooperative and states its not their problem..Need advice</p>
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<p>Can the financial aid people at the school you enrolled change it back since they were the ones who verified? (if it was accurate before).</p>
<p>I called them right away, they first told me to call the university that changed it to correct. They closed before I could speak with them again. Can they correct it back?</p>
<p>Also, any idea why a university would go through the troubled of making a FAFSA correction, months after my son withdrew. Seems odd, also about making assumptions of value vs. debt on this type of investment</p>
<p>Admissions knows your son withdrew, financial aid may not have received that info.</p>
<p>My son’s college also made a fafsa correction the other day. They increased parent net assets by $26,000; however, they decreased EFC by about one thousand. Why would they do that and what basis do they have for doing it???</p>
<p>It seems to me it was a mistake. Mistakes happen. You need to get in touch with that college that changed the FAFSA and talk to them. </p>
<p>When you are verified, the schools take the data from your tax returns, and whatever else you are asked to provide and make adjustments accordingly. That is what they are supposed to be doing. From what I understand, just about everyone will be going through the process, not just those chosen for verification since a link has been established to the tax returns. The basis they have for doing “that” which is making changes, is that the data does not match what you have on your FAFSA. Unless they are making a mistake or the IRS has sent the wrong info–again a mistake, the information on your FAFSA should be coming from your tax return. Where they got asset information, I don’t know, as you are supposed to provide that information to them, unless they got the bank or other institutional info from you, and came up with a balance different from what you gave on the day you filled out the FAFSA. I do know someone who subtracted out all sorts of things from the balance on a given day since they were all things that needed to be paid in a short period afterwards–earmarked funds. NO CAN DO. If it’s in the account that day, you gotta put it down, even if it’s rent that’s due. You fill out FAFSA AFTER depleting your accounts for short term debits and getting that asset number down as low as possible.</p>
<p>I called them right away, they first told me to call the university that changed it to correct. They closed before I could speak with them again. Can they correct it back? </p>
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<p>I am guessing you did not actually speak to a financial aid officer. If you did, it wasn’t a very good one. </p>
<p>The school you are attending absolutely can and should change the FAFSA back to the transaction they verified. It is a very simple process on their end of resetting their system to use the FAFSA transaction number they verified. They have it in their computer, and they just need to set it back to that number. Call again and ask to speak to a financial aid officer. (I know this because I used to be a financial aid officer, and I was authorized to reset transactions)</p>
<p>My son’s college also made a fafsa correction the other day. They increased parent net assets by $26,000; however, they decreased EFC by about one thousand. Why would they do that and what basis do they have for doing it??? </p>
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<p>They had to do more than adjust assets, because the EFC itself cannot be manually adjusted. Only the elements of the EFC are adjusted, and if the EFC decreases, it means that various elements of income decreased or some other non-income adjustment (like an adjustment to family size or number in college) was made. You should be able to see other changes besides the assets. If the changes seem odd, you may want to call the school. Weird mistakes can be made. I once updated a FAFSA during verification only to discover at the end that it was not the FAFSA of the student I was verifying (I caught it & fixed it right away) … this can happen when overworked aid officers are being pushed to complete files quickly. Finaid offices are notoriously understaffed.</p>
<p>Thanks for all advice. The second college received written notification by my son via email to financial aid office and admissions of withdrwal… Someone made a mistake. Anyway, the school who made the correction realized the error and fixed it. The university my son is attending said they would rectify if necessary, but told me I should remove the schools he applied and admitted, but decided to withdraw from on the FAFSA so this would not happen again. Sounds like a good idea for future.</p>
<p>The reason for the net asset adjustment was because they assumed I didn’t have a mortgage on a rental property. I actually owe twice its worth. I sent them a mortgage statement to clarify. The irony is I purchase property in 2004 for future investment, maybe college… It lost value the minute I purchased… just one of those things, have to ride it out for a long time. Bad investment</p>
<p>We have just run into similar situation. When a college makes corrections to FAFSA, how can you tell which college did it?
My son applied and was accepted as a transfer and we just successfully appealed the financial aid offer from the transfer school. I don’t know if his current school or the transfer school “corrected” FAFSA (by increasing the amount of my son’s assets–I have no idea why). Is there a way to tell which school made the changes to FAFSA other than by calling the financial aid offices?</p>
<p>You should be able to see the school code of the school that made the latest update if you look at the Student Aid Report (somewhere near the bottom).</p>
<p>Thanks, kelsmom.
I ended up calling before I got your answer. The transfer school made the correction, so it will not affect their offer. So relieved!</p>