FAFSA question

Paying for College
1

<p>As Dartmouth's financial aid offer was insufficient in covering the cost of attending, I decided to revisit our FAFSA and see if it misrepresented our financial situation. After, looking, I think it does, as we reported the value of retirement plans in the net investments questions. If I read the worksheet correctly, we are not supposed to include the value of these in the reported value given for that question. However, I am not sure if that is the case. Is it?</p>

<p>Additionally, if so, how do I go about telling Dartmouth to reconsider their offer? Should I just resubmit FAFSA and contact the financial aid office, asking them to look at it? Or is there a more formal way to achieve this?</p>

2

<p>No you are not supposed to report the value of retirement accounts on FAFSA (they must, of course, be actual retirement accounts such as IRAs or 401ks, not just money ‘earmarked’ for retirement). </p>

<p>I would both correct FAFSA and contact the school. But isn’t Dartmouth a CSS/profile school? If so I believe the retirement accounts do have to be reported on CSS so they have probably already taken them into account or ignored them for their institutional aid purposes. But check with them to make sure.</p>