I suppose that they indeed picked a subset of the screens that they felt were representative of how things look and forgot this scenario in the web presentation.
Looking at the mobile version, and thinking that the web version might have looked somewhat similar when I did the parental section of my son’s FAFSA years ago, I feel pretty bad that I remember struggling to find the question.
That said, I know people who have made the mistake of not answering yes to the question, including someone with an MBA from a renowned school who could not believe she could have made such mistake when the EFC of one of their children did not match the EFC of the other one (both attending college at the same time - apparently answered yes for one child and no for the other a few hours apart).
Working in the medical devices industry, I have observed Human Factors studies where some people make mistakes in situations that seemed totally nonproblematic.
I think this is such a situation. When looking at a screenshot of one page or screen it seems obvious that one should stop and think about how to answer the question. But in practice one might not, because one might keep clicking Continue through a bunch of pages or screens that say “Transferred from the IRS” all over the place and one might not get that the answer to this particular question is not transferred from the IRS.
Imho two simple improvements are possible:
Do not select No by default. Force the user to click No himself/herself.
Add a note warning the user that the answer to this question is not transferred from the IRS.
And as written before, in my mind the real solution is to fix IRS Form 1040. Handwrite “rollover” on the margin of a form??? Which century are we living in???
ahhhh just came across this post and we too have had our EFC double and we had zero changes to our income! Just looked at my IRS transcript online and yup under "TOTAL PENSIONS AND ANNUITIES:’ it shows a large amount which I assume is when my husband rolled over his IRA stuff from a previous employer. Now what? Is there anyway to log back into the FAFSA and correct this??
My EFC has come higher than our family gross income. I rolled over 2 different 401K’s in 2020(Thanks to Covid, I had time and hubby refused to manage multiple 401k’s and forced me to consolidate). Tomorrow I will try logging to phone version and see if I can do the correction. Is there any other way of fixing this issue.
You need to contact each college. You will need to provide documentation of the rollover(s). This is corrected at the college financial aid office level, I’m pretty sure.
Yes, this is corrected at the individual college level. You’ll need to contact each financial aid office to explain the situation & ask what they need to fix it.
What a complete pain that you can’t just fix this through FAFSA!!! So for my high school senior she doesn’t even know where she is going and now my first interaction with the school is gonna be this. Not to mention she is applying to local scholarships who want her FAFSA info and its not even correct. Super frustrating.
@cgemaj i think everyone here agrees. This should be ever so much clearer on the FAFSA form. But it’s not a huge issue….because colleges deal with this all the time, unfortunately.
So we just used the IRS DRT Tool on the computer to import the return into the FAFSA application (also had a IRA Rollover on the 2021 return) and it very clearly showed the options. There was no pop-up (as other users seem to have reported), it is an option right after you come back to the FAFSA site from the IRS site.
Including screenshots for reference in case this helps anyone …
@NJEngineerDad had posted information from a presentation that shows what it looks like on a mobile device. It’s good to have confirmation of how it looks on a laptop.
By what time frame we need to call the college for correction ?
Yesterday I Called FAFSA and spoke to representative, she said she will send me a paper document which I need to correct and send it back and then they will change the EFC.
I also called U Pitt and they said they will not look at FAFSA until Dec/Jan
For colleges who use CSS , do they see FAFSA too, should I call them too ? My son is applying early so wondering is admission decided based on the income or income will come in play after the admissions are announced
In most cases, admissions has nothing to do with income. If your student has completed the Profile, for those schools that will be the more important document.
For FAFSA for those early schools…especially if early decision…I’d call them asap.
I have never heard of this before. Perhaps it’s something new…
I believe that the FAFSA representative is mistaken. I have never heard of that, and I doubt you’ll receive anything. However, if you do, please let us know.
Every college has its own timeline for reviewing next year’s FAFSAs. I am surprised that they don’t want to collect your documents now, though, but that must be their preference. Other schools may not have you wait, so do make sure to reach out to each school.
I too called and spoke to someone at FAFSA and they told me there was nothing that they could do and that I will have to speak to the school…odd considering we don’t have any idea where my 23 will end up. I did call my other Childs school and they said I can’t even do anything until the spring. Again this is a complete pain and shouldn’t be this difficult to fix and you should be able to do it right through fafsa. Now not sure what to do about the scholarships mine is applying to that require fafsa.
Perhaps include that FAFSA with a note that $____ of the income noted was a rollover to a tax deferred retirement account, and that you will provide documentation of this if necessary?
First, thank you all for this thread. Because of it, I realized I had also made the same mistake!!! Of course it’s one of the items you can’t fix on the FAFSA website! I called and they sent my daughter’s SAR in the mail. I just want to triple check that I’m getting this right. Do I just put the amount of my rollover pension in line 89e? Is that it? Do I have the right line? Thanks!
