FAFSA help!

Paying for College
1

I submitted my FAFSA on Jan 2, and it was processed on Jan 5th. I used my parents taxes from the previous year and my EFC was around 6,000. As soon as my parents did the taxes for 2015, I updated my FAFSA. Their income was lower than the previous year. FAFSA emailed me yesterday and said it was updated. It says updated by college. My EFC is now 13,000! How can it be such a huge change with a LOWER income? Sorry for my minimal FAFSA knowledge…I just have had no help and don’t really understand how it works…

Heres what it says…

Original Application
Submitted: 01/02/2016
Processed: 01/05/2016

Latest Correction
Submitted: 04/14/2016
Submitted By: College
Processed: 04/14/2016

Thanks to anyone who can help me.

2

You need to call the college and ask what they changed. Did your parents contribute to a 401k plan? Did they roll over an IRA?

3

@twoinanddone Yes they did…
to “Tax Deferred Pensions and Retirement Savings” and “Deductible Payments to IRA”

4

Do you have a printout of what you submitted in January? Then compare that with your current SAR (generated after college change) by logging into your FAFSA account.

5

When you updated the FAFSA did you use the IRS data retrieval tool or did you update numbers by hand?

Did the college request that you send them copies of the tax return and/or W2 before they made the change?

6

Did you Indicate two would be in college at the same time?

Did they include the contributions to their retirement accounts the first submission…or not?

7

@ClaremontMom I don’t believe that I do have one but I am looking for it because I know I have printed it out before.

8

@mommdc I did it by hand but I was very meticulous and there were no errors. The thing is, I don’t know which college updated it. It just says updated by college.

9

@thumper1 Nope

10

@ClaremontMom I just found it!!

11

The thing is 401k contributions are not listed on tax return, but they would have seen it on the W2.

Let us know what they changed

12

They changed parents number in college 2016-2017 from 2 to 1. My brother was planning on attending this coming fall. @mommdc

13

@thumper1 Yes, I had initially put 2. Because of my brother. they changed it back to 1

14

Well…if your brother WILL be in college for the 2016-2017 academic year, you need to contact the college. I sort of thought that because your contribution just about doubled.

They need to change it back to one…assuming your brother will be full time in an undergraduate program as a matriculated student. Is that the case.

15

Has your brother been admitted to a college, did he file a FAFSA as well?

16

.

17

That’s odd…why would the college decide to change from 2 to 1…how could they possible know the plans of the OP’s brother.

But yes, if that is what they did, and your brother will be in college, you need to contact them.

Is your brother a graduate student? If found this:

[quote]
Graduate and professional students are automatically independent. The question then arises whether they can be included in household size and the number in college for a sibling’s FAFSA. The answer is that they can, if they will receive more than half their support from the sibling’s parents during the award year. They do not need to be living at home. It is inappropriate to exclude graduate students simply because they are independent. This situation is quite common among law students, where the parents are paying for law school.[/quote[

Maybe the school is assuming your brother is independent and requires you to prove otherwise.

Either which way, it looks like it’s time to call the college!

18

Did you check your email? Did you receive any requests for more information from any schools?