It is my opinion that the current form used by FAFSA to determine financial aid discriminated against a parent who is permanently disabled. I am curious if other individuals in this situation feel the same way and if anyone has a solution to this problem.
I am permanently disabled and I am under the age of 60. I have been receiving Social Security Disability income and Long Term Disability (LTD) income for over 10 years. Our child was receiving Social Security income but it has been terminated because they are now over 18. We are trying to get them on Social Security Disability income because they are a type-1 diabetic.
My child worked hard to graduate at the top of their high school class. My child understood that we could not afford four years of college. My child understood that we would not qualify for loans because I have no “earned income”; my wife does. Despite graduating at the top of their class; there were no substantial financial rewards. Thus, we looked to the FAFSA form for financial help.
Things have changed since my days in college. When I applied for financial aid, the college wanted to know how much money your parents made and what their major expenses were (house, car, medical). Today, the FAFSA form only seems to care about income and nothing else. The FAFSA form asks if you are a “dislocated worker” but it does not ask if you are permanently disabled. The FAFSA form asks about Social Security but not the type of Social Security income, like disability.
My Long Term Disability (LTD) is reported on a W2 and marked 3rd party sick pay. My Social Security is for disability benefits. The FAFSA form views this as income but it is not “earned income”. How the “Expected Family Contribution” (EFC) is calculated is a mystery. I have tried talking with the financial people and while sympathetic, their hands seem to be tied in this situation. I am told that they are just following the rules set by the Department of Education.
How does one fight / navigate this situation? A student with a 3.9 GPA will probably have to drop out of college after this semester. How does one explain this to their child?
I’m not sure what you think your child should be getting, or how your disability payments negatively effect federal financial aid, which is primarily what FAFSA is used to determine.
How FAFSA EFC is calculated is not a mystery. Everything you need to know is here:
If your child is a U.S. citizen or legal resident, he/she is eligible for federal direct student loans, some of which may be subsidized, depending on family financial numbers.
If your child has very good academic numbers (GPA, class rank, standardized test scores), then he/she should have been strongly encouraged to apply to schools that offer large merit aid. If you are a low income family, your child should also have been encouraged to apply to schools that offer generous need-based aid. The aid that comes directly from completing FAFSA is usually not enough to finance a four year college, no matter who you are.
LTD is income and it sounds like that is how you are reporting it. Your social security should not be included on the fafsa as income. There are instructions on how to exclude it. Your child’s supplemental SS stopped at 18 or when she graduated from high school, whichever was later. That’s how it works for everyone and has nothing to do with college and is not discriminatory to your situation.
Schools do review individual FAFSA reports and can apply what is called ‘professional judgment.’ They can consider extraordinary medical costs, loss of income, a one time catastrophe (hurricane, flooding, foreclosure).
The ‘dislocated worker’ status doesn’t really get you much. If you file a 1040A and make under $50k and are a dislocated worker, it can qualified you for Simplified Assets, which means they won’t consider your assets or your child’s assets or income on FAFSA when calculating your Estimated Family Contribution. That helps if you have a lot of assets or your child does but it doesn’t help if a spouse’s income still gets you above $50k, or in your case if your LTD and your spouse’s income is over $50k.
There are a lot of options for inexpensive college. Community college is close to free in a lot of states. Merit scholarships. Work places that pay for school (Starbucks, UPS) . Working while in school or working to save up some money and then going to school with the saved funds. Some students attend schools with co-op programs and go to school for a semester and then work for a semester.
People on this forum are very good at helping students with tricky financial situations find good value colleges. If you want help finding a school that is affordable, post your child’s gpa and test scores, home state, and any other information like major, restrictions (small school, private school, public), location (city, states, regions), can child live at home, transportation.
It is important not to confuse SSDI and LTD payments. SSDI is excluded from the FAFSA formula. In the case of your son, there is virtually zero chance of him getting SSDI on the basis of being a Type 1 diabetic. Lots of case law and precedence on this. His only chance is if it has caused other serious, lasting impairment, i.e., blindness, kidney disease etc.
There is an affordable college for just about every student. Options would have been…
Student gets excellent grades and SAT or ACT scores and applies to colleges where he will get merit aid.
Student attends a community college and commutes from home. Does this for two years, and transfers to a four year college to get the bachelors. Commute if possible.
Dislocated worker status ONLY helps your student IF your income is below a certain threshold.
For auto $0 EFC, I believe that income would need to be below $25000 a year. For simplified needs test…below $49,999.
BUT that does NOT guarantee large amounts of INSTITUTIONAL need based aid from the vast majority of colleges because the vast majority don’t meet full need anyway.
Do you understand what amounts of federally funded need based aid your student would GET guaranteed based on the FAFSA? The maximum Pell Grant is $5900. That is the ONLY guaranteed grant money awarded based on the FAFSA EFC. Your EFC would need to be $0 to get this. All students filing a FAFSA are entitled to $5500 in Direct Loans in the student name. That’s IT for guaranteed federal aid based on the FAFSA. Some students also receive state grants based on that FAFSA EFC OR your family income. Some get FSEOG and work study based on their FAFSA EFC…but those are not guaranteed.
If your SS disability income was not taxed…then it would not be listed on the FAFSA. Check to be sure that is done correctly on your kiddos FAFSA.
But any other income would be.
What about the OTHER parent? Are you married to the other parent of this student, and does that parent work?
My child was the HS valedictorian. I believe their SAT score was a 1980. They were unable to obtain any merit scholarships prior to their college enrollment. Why will remain a mystery.
Their current college GPA is 3.8. I rather not say what college they are in out of fear of reprisal. Emory is just one of the colleges that they were accepted to. Our child’s intended major did not allow them to enroll in a community college. Also, Universities do not like transfer credits because they lose tuition income. This was true 30 years ago.
My Social Security Disability income in taxed at the federal level but not at the state level. My Long Term Disability (LTD) income is taxed at the federal level but not the state level. Medicare is my primary health provider.
My wife works and our child is insured under her health plan.
I truly appreciate the link to the EFC formula because it provided a magic number; AIG < $49,999.
My Social Security and LTD income are around 35K, before taxes. My wife’s income is about 30K, before taxes. This sounds like a lot of money to people, especially to the FAFSA for. Our Expected Family Contribution (EFC) for 2018/2019 is 11K.
Permanently disabled implies medical problems. Medical problems imply many medical bills. Permanently disabled implies that there are many daily activities that I cannot perform. I am unable to cook and feed myself and live on takeout until my wife comes home. I cannot perform home repairs, so our home is falling apart. None of this is taken in to account on the FAFSA and most of cannot be written off on federal taxes.
The college financial individuals do not seem to know how to handle this unique situation and are worried about compliance. Yes, we have done appeals, meet in person and our child signed a FERPA
.
I spent 5 years in college and earned two science related degrees. I made plans for the future but my future was taken away from me and my family is now paying the price. My Social Security and LTD income are a hindrance to our family. Did you know that you are not allowed to discontinue Social Security Disability income once it starts? The best thing that I can do for my family is to die but it is now too late in the game to die; I am not playing the sympathy card because I am stating my reality.
As I say earlier, the FAFSA only seems to care about income and not the source. You can make $250, 000 but your $200,000 in medical bills is meaningless. My guts say that I need to approach this from at a federal level. Thoughts?
You kind of lost me with the Type-1 diabetes being a reason to get disability. That seems like trying to game the system if the kid was Val of their HS class and is maintaining a 3.8 in college, unless they have serious disabilities from the diabetes like vision loss.
In general I don’t think you are going to win a fight with the govt for Pell grants. Your best bet is to provide a summary (high level) of your medical bills/debt to their college FA office to see if they can improve your kid’s FA package. Be polite, don’t rail against the system, and ask if you can please appeal based on parental disability and high medical bills. An angry tirade at the federal Pell system will get you nowhere.
If you had a lot of medical bills…you should have contacted the financial aid offices regarding professional judgement or a special circumstances consideration. Did you do that?
School financial aid officers have the ability to consider these kinds of medical bills and DO understand how to deal with it…but you have to go through their process…and give them the info they need to make a decision about your circumstances. Only unreimbursed medical,expenses are considered…and if you had those, they might have been considered. And yes…you would need to provide documentation of these expenses and what was not reimbursed. No one will ask for your medical records…but they will ask for your bills, EOBs, etc.
They don’t make adjustments for home improvements because a LOT of people pay to have these done…part of the responsibility of home ownership. BUT they often DO make adjustments related to unreimbursed medical expenses.
1980 would have been the older SAT with three sections…max score 2400. 1980 is a fine score…but not tippy top. What was the kid’s CR and Math total. The max score now is two sections…1600.
Re transfer credits…your comment is NOT accurate…it’s your perception. A large number of four year universities have Articulation agreements with community colleges…and accept those credits.
This is not true. First of all, FAFSA also considers the assets of both the student and the parent(s). But most importantly, non-elective medical procedures can most definitely be used as the basis for what is called “professional judgment,” which happens when information is provided to a school’s financial aid officer, showing extraordinary medical expenses that have been incurred by a family member that are significantly impacting the ability to pay for higher education expenses. To the extent that you are having a problem, it sounds like it’s coming from the school’s financial aid office, and not FAFSA. Have you tried using the phrase “we request professional judgment due to extraordinary medical expenses”?
You need to understand, though, that depending on the school, the only thing you may get is more favorable treatment for federal financial assistance. This could be a maximum Pell grant of $5,920 and part of the federal direct loan becoming subsidized (meaning the interest will be paid by the government while the student is still in school). If the school doesn’t provide much or any of its own money in any case, professional judgment won’t help there.
You should have known before your child started college how much was being offered or available in grants, scholarships and loans, and with this information a plan for covering four years of college expenses should have been in place. And yet here you are halfway through an academic year saying that your child will probably have to drop out of school after this semester. How were you planning to pay for the following years?
Wouldn’t you be able to use those medical expenses to bring down your taxable income if they were greater than a certain percentage of your income when you do you taxes?
Many kids are poor and complete college more slowly by working part time and taking classes piece meal. This is the case even if they have two healthy parents.
There are a lot of things that the FAFSA doesn’t ask about that college financial aid officers will consider if you file an appeal.
The real trick is to find a school that has additional financial aid funds to add to what the federal government provides.
Since you do not name your school, I’ll pick on Emerson, which another student here is having a bad experience with. If you go onto Big Future (bigfuture.collegeboard.org) and look up Emerson, click on “Paying” and under paying pick “Financial Aid by the Numbers,” the average financial aid package meets 62% of need. This is a school where if you need more money than is in the initial package, it likely just isn’t there.
On the other hand, you can use the search functions to find schools that meet 80% or more of need. These are more likely to work with you. (The search tool works in 20% increments, and while there are dozens of schools that meet 90% or more of need, there aren’t that many that meet 100% so you need to search on 80% and above.)
If your school is not generous, it does not matter how many dollars of medical expenses you document, they just don’t have the money. Similarly, even if your income is below that magic 50,000 figure, the federal government doesn’t give you a full ride scholarship. You get your basic Pell grant and your loan is subsidized. The rest is still coming from the college.
The thing that families miss is that the financial aid game is won or lost when your child builds their college list. Applying to out of state public universities is often a big mistake. Turning down lower-ranking schools that offer big freshman scholarships to kids with high grades and test scores because the student “deserves better” is another.
Your snobbish attitude towards community colleges is also a problem. You could have saved a ton of money by having your daughter spend two years there. In the three states I’m most familiar with (and probably in all states) the state flagship universities are REQUIRED to reserve a certain number of spaces for community college transfers, and the community college catalogs specifically state which credits transfer and which don’t.
I have no idea if your kids current college is going to be able to exercise professional judgment on your situation and come up with more money- but there are colleges that will, and can. I have no idea what kind of major couldn’t start out at a CC to knock off the Gen Ed requirements, and you are flat out wrong about universities not taking transfer credits due to tuition income. When a U doesn’t take a CC credit, it’s because the class does not correlate to university level work (i.e. a remedial math class, or a writing workshop which teaches the basics of a 9th grade composition course). Kids taking college level work at CC get university credit for those classes all over the country.
There is no mystery why your kid didn’t get merit aid- she applied to the wrong schools. That’s not a mystery, that’s a mistake. There are schools which offer zero merit aid, there are schools that only offer a handful of lucrative scholarships, there are schools which do not offer merit aid to kids out of state. None of these are mysteries- they are stated up front on the college website. None of this is discriminatory.
I feel for your situation- and hope that your health stabilizes. But you’ve got to deal with facts, not anger. And if we don’t know where your kid is enrolled we can’t be helpful on trying to get you more money.
Your fear of “retribution” if you name the school is not rational. College financial aid officers do not make decisions based on college confidential posts. They really don’t.
If this is a Fafsa-only school, what says they have the money to give enough aid, in the first place? Most don’t, even if your AGI is less than 50k. The other day, eg, a poster pointed to one large state flagship which, despite the family EFC of $6000, would have gotten only $4k in aid from the university. Unfortunate and unpleasant, but the college doesn’t have the money.
The Fafsa EFC is an initial calculation only, not an obligation to the college. There are Meet Full Need colleges that will work off that Fafsa EFC, but they require the CSS Profile.
Is your child at a private college? A 1980 SAT is good enough to get accepted to a broad range of schools, but not high enough to get a full ride. Our family has a similar income and our son had similar stats. Several colleges he applied to gave us packages whose net price was ~$20k/year. Those schools came off the table. Some colleges may make adjustments for medical bills, but many can’t afford to do that.
The FAFSA EFC just tells if you qualify for a Pell Grant. The maximum Pell is ~$5900. Our AGI was ~$60k our son’s first year of college and our EFC was only $3500, so unless you have assets I’m not sure why yours is $11k. I would start with your finances, not what you think colleges should offer. Your child can probably raise $3k/year by working summers, and they can take the ~$5500/year federal student loan. Is that enough to commute to a cc or 4-year school?
My father was disabled most of my life. At no time would we have been better off without him. Even though my siblings and I qualified for Pell, it wasn’t enough to pay for residential college, so we all attended community college. In NYS, cc grads are guaranteed transfer to a 4-year SUNY.
They aren’t guaranteed a specific branch, but they’re guaranteed a spot somewhere, so we started at a cc and transferred. After we got our first job, where we went to school didn’t matter.
If you tell us your state, long time posters may be able to help you locate affordable options. The people on CC are very knowledgeable. I’ve learned a lot from them in the short time I’ve been here.
Being Type 1 Diabetic is not a disability that qualifies for disability checks. Why are people now thinking that if they have any sort of chronic issue, they’re suddenly disabled and are expecting monthly checks. Do you think diabetics don’t work full time??? Does your daughter plan on getting a college education and never work?
Your daughter needs to apply to schools that you can afford or where she’ll get enough aid or merit.
how much can the parents contribute each year towards college?
<<<<
A student with a 3.9 GPA will probably have to drop out of college after this semester. How does one explain this to their child?
<<<<<
You let your child start at a school where she didn’t have adequate funding?? Why would you do that? When last fall came around, where did you think the money was going to come from to pay for college??
You’re not being discriminated. Your household income is your income.
How much do you have in uncovered medical bills for the FAFSA reporting year? Did you ask for an EFC adjustment because of uncovered medical bills?
Do you realize that the Federal gov’t has little free money to give no matter how poor you are??
<<<<<
believe their SAT score was a 1980. They were unable to obtain any merit scholarships prior to their college enrollment. Why will remain a mystery.
<<<
Not a mystery. Sounds like she applied to schools that either don’t give merit scholarship or where a 1980 is just an average score. You mention something about Emory. At Emory, a 1980 would be a LOW score.
Also, Universities do not like transfer credits because they lose tuition income. This was true 30 years ago.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Well, times have changed. Now many CCs have articulation agreements so a student can go to a CC for two years and then transfer and have all credits accepted. What is the intended career goal/major and what state are you in