<p>It says its an index and not a dollar amount, but I was thinking it would be lower in that 0 efc means youre in dire need.</p>
<p>Ours came back at 24000 and change! On a disability pension under $50000 and no assets for a fam of 4. I feel sick! I checked and rechecked everything we entered and I cant find any errors. For pete's sake the AGI was NEGATIVE!!</p>
<p>You may have entered something wrong if your agi is negative.</p>
<p>I am going to look at it again…could it be if it was negative the number should be 0? I actually feel sick! I never read about anyone’s being such a high number!</p>
<p>If a number is negative you need to use zero.</p>
<p>I tried to check that part out but it is being processed and I can’t access it. Will I be able to correct that? School priority deadline is Mar 1. Is a correction instant? I didn’t see where it said to put 0, just which line to take it from off the 1040. I still feel like throwing up. Do you think this could be that big of a deal to make that EFC so high? I mean even the neg.number as a positive ( which really shows neg on my prinout) is not a heck of a lot of money. It was neg ~ -8K.</p>
<p>Are you sure it isn’t 02400? FAFSA won’t accept negative numbers, so you have to correct it to 0. But there’s something else going on if your AGI is negative/zero and you have a $24K EFC! I’m thinking that you may have entered the disability pension as student income, not parent’s. Excess student income is assessed at 50%.</p>
<p>Is the disability pension from Social Security? If so, any untaxed SS benefits are not reported for FAFSA. After it finishes processing, you’ll get an email directing you to view the Student Aid Report. You can correct any errors and resubmit…processing usually take a few days. When you’re checking it over, it may be helpful to print the SAR and go through it with the detailed FAFSA instructions here:</p>
<p>[Completing</a> the FAFSA: Financial Aid from the U.S. Department of Education](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/publications/completing_fafsa/index.html]Completing”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/publications/completing_fafsa/index.html)</p>
<p>Ok I will get an email when it is done? I felt like I was so careful and when I look at the printouts of my submission I dont see anything wrong, aside from what you guys seem to think should be 0 instead of a neg. ( the neg really is on the printout by the way) </p>
<p>I feel some relief that you agree it is way too high, but still feel so upset and nervous. Ohhhh why me? Ha.</p>
<p>IIRC, it’s the student who gets the email but, yes, it’ll come and then you’ll be ready to make corrections. Did you happen to print the data before you submitted? If you want to post/PM the line #'s and amounts, someone here can probably spot it pretty quickly…unfortunately, we’re veteran FAFSA filers.</p>
<p>Nothing stands out on the print out. When I get the email will it show on what the calculation is based? If it isnt obvious then, I may take you up on the PM. Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>If a number is negative you need to use zero.
+++++
AGI can be entered as a negative number (it’s just the income from work figure, which can sometimes be negative on line 12, that must be entered as 0 if negative).</p>
<p>There is most likely something wrong. You should not have an EFC that high with a negative AGI. You entered something incorrectly. Once you get the report back, look at every line. Tell me about the disability income. Is it social security disability income, or another type of disability income? If it’s another type, then did you have to report some or all of it on the federal tax return? If not, then the entire amount of any non-social security disability would be reported as untaxed income. Even then, I wouldn’t think it would push your EFC that high. I also wonder if that was incorrectly reported on the student side (unless student is parent … then it would obviously have to be reported on the student side).</p>
<p>No reason to fret just yet. Once the report is back, check it out & post again.</p>
<p>The disability income is Soc Sec and was not part of the untaxed income. The wages are 0 and the untaxed pension is under $50K and was listed under parents and not student. (on my printed summary this seems correct) The AGI is neg and shows the neg and on the student side there is no income and says will not file on tax line. From what you all say, I bet when the report comes it will show something in there because the number is close to half of the pension, and if it were my daughter’s income, that’s what we would have pay! What HS senior has an untaxed pension?? Ha I just can’t understand how I am looking at a print out with nothing obviously incorrect. </p>
<p>How long does it usually take to receive the report? Once corrected will it permanently wipe any potential incorrect record or will I have to explain over and over why I had to fix it? (assuming its wrong…)</p>
<p>So do they have Soc Sec disability AND an untaxed pension? </p>
<p>How did you get a negatiave AGI? Sounds like you have zero taxable income. Where did the negative number come from?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, you’ll have to look at the EFC Formula Guide to follow the calculation through:</p>
<p><a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/082511EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/082511EFCFormulaGuide1213.pdf</a></p>
<p>I would leave the AGI as is, since it’s correctly displaying the negative and kelsmom says that it’s okay to have in that field.</p>
<p>Yes, soc sec disability which, according to a live FAFSA rep does not come into play on FAFSA sheet, the pension was represented, and there was a significant capital loss/carryover resulting in neg AGI, I believe. These are real numbers from the 1040 ready to file. Not the best times as is plain to see. Not so glamorous as it sounds, no taxable income haha.</p>
<p>I will wait for the report - is there going to be directions to follow to find/fix errors in submission? Again, my summary doesn’t show student income but the EFC is pretty much 50% of parents pension number. So I hate waiting to fix it but I have no choice!</p>
<p>As soon as FAFSA gives you the option to make corrections, go make your change to zero. The program probably has a bug in it that makes it go crazy for negative income. But triple check the other numbers too.</p>
<p>I think there’s an error somewhere else. The most the capital loss carryover you can take on this year’s return is $3,000. Where does the other $5K come from?</p>
<p>I’m also wondering if the OP has some type of asset valuation or non-protected fund that is skewing the calculation…it is conceivable to have a high EFC if one has assets valued very very high even without much regular income…although in this case I believe he or she would need to have listed about $400 - 500k worth of assets (which I believe are assessed at 5.6%, right) for an EFC of $24 k.</p>
<p>Any chance this is the case?</p>
<p>Guessing not, as she said “no assets” in the OP. But it was my first thought too!</p>
<p>^^ Probably more like $250,000 it feels. And yes, I thought the max capital carry-over loss allowed was $3000 per year. But I agree, there is most likely problems with the FAFSA or problems with the 1040 that caused the problems with the FAFSA.</p>