I have following questions related to fafsa for 2019-2020.
for 2019-2020 using 2017 tax info. But when filling income details, should it be current income or 2017 income ?
if taxes are filed for 2018 year, still is it ok to use 2017 taxes for 2019-2020?
is it okay to select work study program and not work on campus? Is it mandatory to work on campus if opted for work study program in fafsa? What about vice versa… Meaning did not opt for work study program, then can student still apply for work on campus or internship?
is the purpose of applying for parent FSA number only to sign or should parent also have a separate form etc?
is it enough if only one parent applies for FSA number or both parents have to have those numbers?
should 401k be mentioned anywhere?
if parents filing taxes jointly then, should all savings, earnings be entered in fafsa as combined savings and combined earnings
should exemptions be from 2017 or 2018 or 2019?
if parent and student have joint account then that balance amount is parents saving?
if student had summer job in the summer of 2018 (not 2017) then those earnings be entered in student information?
how many days does it take to get FSA number for student and parent?
Sorry for any typos.
I understand that its very late to fill FAFSA now, but filling it anyway. At least will try to submit before march 1st if able to complete it.
Can you all please clarify above doubts.
Use 2017 taxes and the income on that form (2017 income).
Use 2017. You do not have a choice
If work study is check you may or may not get it. If you don’t get a work study job, that’s okay, the money is never transferred to you.
4 & 5) One parent and the student need IDs. You have to use different emails. FAFSA is for the student; parents don’t have a separate filing.
contributions to 401k during 2017 will be added back in to income. There is a line in the parent’s section about it.
the form will ask for each parent’s income separately; other assets can be entered jointly
? enter the number in the family currently
enter the student’s assets in the student section. Is it your money or your parents’ money?
No, only enter 2017 income
You can get it almost immediately if you answer the questions correctly and social security can match your answers with SSN. If you screw it up (guess who did that not only for her daughter (wrong SSN) but for herself (wrong birth date?) it takes several days for you to be allowed to try again. And if you STILL screw it up, it takes more days… Lesson? Enter the figures correctly.
You can apply for Work Study, but even if you’re awarded a grant you’re not guaranteed a job. You have to apply for Work Study jobs when you get to campus. If you don’t get a job then you don’t get the money. If you do get a job you’re only paid for the hours you work. I think the total awards are small – ~$1500/semester.
For the 2019-2020 FAFSA you use 2017 tax return information.
IF you receive work study as part of your award (doubtful at this late date) then those monies need to be earned working a work study job.
You can choose to work off campus if you want to, but that will be a regular job.
Parents complete the PARENT section on the FAFSA (do you see that?) and students complete the STUDENT section.
The student needs a FSA ID, and one parent needs one to sign electronically.
One parent.
there is a question that asks about the 2017 contributions TO these accounts on the FAFSA. The balance IN these retirement accounts is not included.
If your parents are married, it doesn’t matter if they file jointly or separately…ALL these things need to be included on the FAFSA for both of them.
2017…everything on the 2019-2020 FAFSA comes from the 2017 tax year.
Joint or separate accounts…ALL balances in both parent accounts need tombe listed if your parents are married.
NO. You are using 2017 tax year information…not 2018.
Not long. Make sure younwrote EVERYTHING down and keep it in a safe place because you will need all the security question and log in information again.
And YES…it’s late since this has been available since October 1. This should have been filed when your kid applied to these colleges.
I also see that your daughter got accepted to a number of public universities in a LOT of different states. Clearly you are not a resident of all those different states. For those out of state public universities, can you afford the cost as an out of state resident.
Which one is your instate option?
And lastly…you wrote this in January…
Are you expecting an EFC in this range? Did you run the Net Price Calculators for each of these colleges BEFORE your kid applied? The schools WILL expect you to pay their calculated family contribution. If the cost of attendance is less than $50,000, you will be paying the full costs. If the cost of attendance is more than $50,000…then $50,000 is the minimum you will be expected to pay.
How much CAN you pay annually for college costs? That is the bigger question. And are ANY of you daughter’s acceptances affordable?
You can select on the FAFSA that you are interested to be considered for federal work study, you might not be awarded it, and you will have to find a job. You are not required to use the work study if you don’t want it, you can decline it later.
Income and tax information from 2017 is used. Asset information is of the day you submit FAFSA.
If your parents filed 2017 taxes married jointly, then you can use the IRS data retrieval tool in FAFSA to import the tax info. Then you only have to enter the parent 1 and 2 income from working by hand because on the tax return it was added together. Tax form and exemptions and such will be imported by the retrieval tool.
If you didn’t file taxes in 2017 the school might need a non filing verification from the IRS for you. And if you don’t use the data retrieval tool, you might need a tax transcript for your parents.
The 401k contributions your parents made in 2017 are not on the tax return, but they are listed on their W2 in box 12. There is a question on the FAFSA asking about it among other questions about untaxed income.
@thumper1 – our in-state college is a top three elite public college (almost similar ranking to UMich or even better than UMich) and D got accepted for engineering there as well. But she is not interested in attending that college.
Regarding affording for college tuition costs, was relying on merit scholarships. Almost all colleges gave D good scholarships except the top choice colleges (Purdue, UMich, UIUC, UMD, Gatech did not give any merit scholarships).
one of our in-state is giving free tuition scholarship. But again want to give choice to D which college she wants to attend.
parents (middle class) did save for 4-year college.
different net calculators gave varying numbers but all above 50K EFC. so not qualify for financial aid.
hence did not fill our FAFSA.
But recently came across on Purdue website that FAFSA is needed even for some merit scholarships.
so now, reconsidering applying for FAFSA.
Michigan, Purdue, UIUC, UMD, and GA Tech are public universities whose main mission is to provide more affordable college costs for their instate tax paying families. There is a reason they have OOS costs…OOS fami,is aren’t contributing a nickel towards the support of higher education in those states.
You say your daughter got accepted at an Uber elite public but she doesn’t want to go there. Why is that? Because she thinks she is going to run into her HS classmates all the time? That’s garbage. These flagship universities…all of the ones you listed, and probably including your own…are large schools with plenty of students your kid won’t know. She never needs to see her HS classmates.
Engineering is a very “even” course of study at these colleges which are ALL ABET accredited…your own flagship probably is as well.
Yes, some merit awards do require the FAFSA, but that is because those merit awards also consider financial need…and your family apparently does NOT have financial need.
The cost of attendance at Purdue for OOS students is in the $42,000 a year range. If your FAFSA EFC is $50,000, you will be a full pay family at Purdue.
Georgia Tech cost of attendance is in the over $50,000 a year range. You will be full pay there too.
So…the BIG question…do you have $200,000 plus saved (you absolutely can expect a cost increase annually at the schools listed) to pay the college costs at the schools where no merit was given?
If so…you are good to go.
If not…will your daughter taking the $5500 freshman Direct Loan help?
Are these affordable for your family acceptances…or not?
If not…your elite instate flagship really needs to be on the table.
And if grad school or professional school is possible, your college savings might just be better off being spent for that.
This is your money and your family decision. But those OOS publics are going to cost a lot more than your instate public for a very equivalent engineering education.
Not sure why the advice wasn’t considered. It was excellent.
The elite flagships are UNC-CH, UVA…and I saw that UNC-CH was being considered as an option. If that is your instate option, it’s very very worth considering. Very. Same with UVA. Oh…and if you want need based aid from those schools…or Michigan…the Profile is required in addition to the FAFSA.
@thumper1 , you are right about that thread having good advice. I guess I never visited that old thread again.
I started thread when I did not understand the college application process. Lot of parents gave good advice on this forum and helped a lot. At the time I was more concerned about college admission and less about costs.
I will talk to D about in-state options. It is not about old classmates. I guess it is more about change. Initially D really wanted to attend Pitt and that changed over time. so maybe in next couple of months, it will be more clear.
i didn’t mean to brag about in-state being elite specially when we are not even considering that college. now if I re-read my post, it does sound like bragging (sorry).
paying for college would be a combination of (if full OOS fees): savings + student summer internship earnings + loans (loans not needed in first 2 years). Also maybe early graduation ( 3 or 3.5 years).
in this case, purpose of considering filling FAFSA is not for need based aid. it is more for consideration for merit aid (if not for freshman year, maybe in sophomore year) where college says FAFSA should be on file.
Check with the college. Usually when they want a FAFSA for merit aid it is because there is also a NEED component.
It appears you don’t have financial need…right?
The FAFSA you do THIS year is for this year only. You will need to do it again…and again for subsequent years. It’s a one year form. The college isn’t going to keep the 2019-2020 FAFSA “on file” for subsequent years.
And since you still haven’t mentioned your state…look again at my comment about uva, Michigan and UNC-CH. these require the Profile. The FAFSA doesn’t mean spit to them. Or are there specific scholarships that specifically mention the FAFSA.
My kid was an engineering major. Because of the course requirements, it would have been impossible for her to graduate early. Check that also. Engineering has a very firm sequence…and it’s not flexible at all.
My same kid applied for a couple of scholarships that required the FAFSA. We had NO financial need and she didn’t get any of them. She was otherwise well qualified to receive them.
You mentioned that some other schools beside your flagship came in with good merit aid. Perhaps one of those will rise to the top.
Students can only borrow ~$5500/year. I wouldn’t count on early graduation from an engineering program or enough summer earnings to make a dent in a $50k+ college bill. How much can you pay per year for all 4 years?
@learning19 my kid didn’t want her two main in-state options either. She was accepted to UT Engineering and TAMU engineering. Ironically (since you mentioned your daughter doesn’t want to go to Pitt) she wanted to go OOS to Pitt. We were on board with that but 100% said it would not happen unless she got costs down to within breathing room of our those two in-state options.
She was able to do that with her merit scholarships at Pitt and she is doing really well. She has many friends accepting internship and co-op offers or accepting summer research positions. She just accepted a co-op offer at a large engineering company. Pitt has definitely been rigorous enough for her and I would daresay freshman year almost too rigorous. She was surrounded by many many many kids who were well prepared from very rigorous high schools.
Is your daughter going to get her costs down to your in-state options?I would heavily advise against signing for private loan debt. There are many many students who start out as engineering majors who change their minds after year one.
At this point, you probably aren’t talking hypotheticals any more. You know which schools she applied to and how much they will cost, what merit aid there is.
It’s too bad she doesn’t want to go to a state school. It would not be just like high school, and even if it were, why wouldn’t that be okay? Is everyone from her high school majoring in engineering? Would she even have a class with someone from hs? My daughter graduated from a Florida high school and went to Wyoming. There were two kids from her Kindergarten class, one in her dorm and another in her sorority. You’d think that going 2000 miles away would be enough to guarantee you were unique to that school, but no one gets to call ‘dibs’ on a school (my daughter wasn’t trying to avoid anyone). I think it is ridiculous to pay more for an OOS school just to avoid others from your high school but you are welcomed to pay more if that is what she wants.
@carachel2, firstly, I would like to thank you for your kindness and patiently answer all my doubts on CC during this college application year.
Pitt is the only college that put D on honors college wait list.
Pitt’s honors wait list email asked student to fill out a form if interested in honors college and it was binding (meaning acceptance of admission to college). That is when it is not our top choice college any more even with 20k/yr merit scholarship.
Ok so you are really going to let the lack of honors at Pitt keep her from attending Pitt?? That’s just… ridiculous. How much are you going to go into debt to pay for these other colleges?
Pitts honors program has up until this point been really a vague concept and now all of a sudden they are making it some weird super highly selective club. Trust me. It’s not a big deal to be or not be in honors. Your daughter will be PLENTY busy in regular Pitt classes. Plenty. And if she’s a superstar she can just use all of her AP credits and get further ahead. Mine takes zero honors classes. Zero. Despite being in honors. Why? Because 17-19 hrs of academic load plus an on campus job in the engineering department plus an officer position plus an engineering competition group plus a social organization keep her plenty busy. Her friends (who almost all have research positions or pending co-op or internship offers) all say the same. They may have taken ONE honors class but that’s it.
IF she is turning down Pitt for other affordable choices without private loans then cool. But if she is having to turn to private loans or you to Parent loans because she’s miffed about the honors decision then it’s time for everyone to put on their big kid underwear and move forward. Pitt with no debt is a no brainer.
If the other schools are all affordable with minimal debt then cool. Forgive my rant lol. But honors at Pitt is not a big deal and I don’t foresee it being a big deal until they slowly change the program. And even at Engineering orientation one of the lead
Advisors actually says “stop with the honors this and the honors that. It’s enough to be here and in engineering.” Most employers simply don’t care.
I agree with @carachel2 about Pitt. The engineering program there is plenty rigorous…and being in the honors college really should not be a deal breaker. I would suggest putting aside the bruised ego of not getting into the honors college there…and decide based on the merits of Pitt as a great school.
If your daughter has other affordable options…then fine…you can ignore this post.
Even if pitt denies college admission that would have been fine.
It is more about binding application to honors college that was sent by them and add to that the missed chance to apply for chancellors scholarship.
D received scholarships from other OOS colleges that bring the cost of attendance fees lower. Although those are not her top choice colleges, she is okay to attend one of those colleges.
Ok cool. It was impossible to tell from your post if the other schools are affordable or not. I didn’t see any posts about how aid she got from Purdue or UM.