<p>So last April I received my financial aid package for University of Massachusetts Amherst. I pretty much chose UMass because of all the money I got, and because of how cheap it would be. I send in my downpayment ($400) and declare that I'm going there.</p>
<p>In August:
Apparently 20% of the FASFA forms are checked for accuracy. Mine was one of the 20%. Apparently my parents missed an $800 tax break on their FASFA, which resulted in the school cutting my grant money by $3400 for the year. This was absolutely infuriating, especially since I couldn't back out of attendance at that point. Apparently they use income brackets, which results in $800 tax breaks equating to $3400 of increased EFC.</p>
<p>In OCTOBER:
20% of all sibling enrollments are checked. You guessed it: mine was checked. They wanted me to prove that my younger brother (16) was enrolled in college (at least 6 credits). Turns out he was only taking 4 credits. At this point, all but one loan had yet to be credited to my account. They have completely reassessed my financial aid for loans I have already taken out, and grants I have already gotten. Is this legal? I cannot explain how disgusted I am with the incompetence and dishonesty of this financial aid dept.</p>
<p>What happens to the grants that they say I now don't deserve? What about loans that I shouldn't have gotten, but already took out? Are they allowed to verify documents halfway through the semester? Even though it says "financial aid packages are subject to change" in fine print, can they really change things now? Are they allowed to change my package by such a large degree ($3400) after I payed my enrollment fee?</p>
<p>What was done was correct. I realize that this is not what you want to hear, but that is the truth.</p>
<p>First of all, I know that your parents did not intentionally leave out the $800. That is the Making Work Pay tax credit. The Dept of Ed did not originally put this in the FAFSA instructions, and financial aid professionals did not realize it had to be reported. It was not excluded per regulations like other credits, and the effect was that it had to be reported. Finaid officers have no choice but to add it back in when verifying; it’s the law. While it is seems unfair, the aid officers have no choice (and by the way, at least 30% of all FAFSA’s received by a school have to be verified).</p>
<p>As for the sibling in college, the directions are that the sibling must be in college at least half time; your sibling is not. And because your sibling is 16, I am guessing this may be a dual enrollment. These generally do not count as a sibling in school; you would need to follow the directions carefully. When schools do the enrollment check, they absolutely can make adjustments. The sibling is not in college half time, so does not count in the number in college. The school is neither incompentent nor dishonest.</p>
<p>It sounds like the school adjusted your aid based on its packaging rules - they have to do that, as it is important to apply the rules to everyone. The late date makes it rough on you. However, it sounds like everything was done according to the rules & regulations.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for your frustration, but have to wonder if there’s not a FA advisor somewhere in MA thinking the same about some student s/he had to revise an award package for! Basically, you didn’t read/follow the FAFSA instructions carefully and are now blaming the school for following federal/state regs that they are required to adhere to. The old “garbage in, garbage out” principal applies here.</p>
<p>Sorry, but there really nothing you can do and the school is following the correct procedure. Please be very careful filing your FAFSA in the future - schools often verify more than the required percentage of students and are required by law to resolve any discrepancies they find.</p>
<p>As for why you were selected for verification so late: If you made ANY changes to your FAFSA, it may have been selected at that time … or it may have been selected earlier, but you got an estimated package & did not realize that you were selected for verification. If the selection occurred on a later transaction - such as an update you made in August - the school HAS to verify you. I have had to verify students near the end of the school year due to updates they made (such as sending the FAFSA to another school for summer term) … when they sent the update, they were selected for verification … and I had to verify them because they were still in school & that’s the law. More than a few ended up with reduced awards, and I had to take away aid for both fall and spring … in April, sometimes.</p>
<p>I’m not a financial aid advisor. Do they honestly expect applicants to flawlessly fill out the FASFA page? Regardless of whether I filled it out correctly or not, why did it take them 9 months to verify it? Why don’t they verify your information when you apply in the first place, or at least before August?</p>
<p>I’m generally past all the changes. I’ve decided to hold a life long grudge and never give them any money after graduation (that’ll show them…). But what happens to my financial aid now? I received a Pell grant, which was already credited to my account. My new financial aid package doesn’t include a pell grant.</p>
<p>What about loans? My new package includes less loan money than when I took out the loans in august/september.</p>
<p>The financial aid package change wasn’t such a big deal. It was the fact that they waited so long to verify the information. It’s almost as if they purposely wait until I enroll before looking for places they can squeeze money out of you.</p>
<p>Either you missed the original notification that you were being verified, or you changed your FAFSA and were selected later. Either way, you had to be verified. That’s how it goes.</p>
<p>While you are not a financial aid officer, the financial aid officer IS … and as such must make sure that all of your reported information matches your actual situation. That is why following directions carefully is a must.</p>
<p>You probably have a lower loan amount because the school had to reduce your subsidized loan. They are not allowed to increase your unsubsidized loan without your permission, as the loan terms are not as good with an unsub - so they can’t just switch the loan amounts. You will need to request an increase in your unsub loan. If you are a freshman, the total Stafford you can borrow is $5500 (sub+unsub, or all unsub). You can request the difference between what you have been awarded to date and the $5500.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the year, lets say I took out</p>
<p>$2000 federal subsidized loan
$2000 federal un-subsidized loan</p>
<p>They put $1000 from each towards the fall, and I assume they are holding the other $2000, and will give it to me in the spring. But the new financial aid package they gave me today re-assesses the financial aid I SHOULD have gotten for the fall. Since I took out $4000, but my new financial aid package says I don’t get ANY loans, what happens to my loans? What happens to the $2000 that is being saved for the spring?</p>
<p>I also got a pell grant earlier this year. I got (lets say) $300 for the fall, and was expecting another $300 for the spring. My new financial aid package doesn’t include any Pell grant money. Where does that $300 for the spring go? What about the $300 I already got, that has already been paid to the bursars office.</p>
<p>I really didn’t think it was possible to re-assess financial aid that I’ve already gotten. I never got an email about the verification process. Reading about it now, I realize that the forms they requested dealt with this process, even though it was not explained to me in the slightest. At the time, I just assumed I forgot a form that they needed for their records.</p>
<p>Overcore, the FAFSA isn’t difficult to fill out and the instructions for each question are given. It’s really only a matter of following them and calling the help line if you really can’t figure it out or have an unusual situation.</p>
<p>I’m confused about the “late” verification of FAFSA as you posted in mid-July that your FA package had been changed. The sibling verifications, in our experience, don’t come out until after the semester has begun. This is done to make sure that the expected number of students/household reported on FAFSA are actually enrolled as this makes a big difference in EFC.</p>
<p>You should make an appointment to sit down with someone if the FA office. They will explain the situation with your loans and the Pell grant (which you’ll be rebilled for, since it was awarded in error). I think the loans will be reinstated, but may not be subsidized.</p>
<p>“First of all, I know that your parents did not intentionally leave out the $800. That is the Making Work Pay tax credit. The Dept of Ed did not originally put this in the FAFSA instructions, and financial aid professionals did not realize it had to be reported.”</p>
<p>Apparently, the FAFSA information I failed to report wasn’t even in the directions, so I don’t understand how I was supposed to know to report it. Just recently (less than a month ago), my college asked me to verify my brother was in college. He is not taking enough credits, so I told them, and they readjusted my aid package. I don’t know where you got late July from.</p>
<p>The $3400 figure you quoted in your original post sounds like it was from the FAFSA verification…which you posted on another thread in the middle of July. Perhaps you didn’t realize that you were verified but when did you actually have to submit your parent’s tax forms? That would have been for verification purposes.</p>
<p>The October verification of # of students in college seems to be pretty routine. My kids just got their notices and had to have siblings sign forms last week.</p>
<p>As you are not eligible for the Pell grant, the school will have to repay that money to the govt and you will owe that money to the school. </p>
<p>Were your original loans subsidized loans? If you do not have the full amount of direct loans for the year ($5500 for a freshman), you should be able to change any subsidized loan that have been cancelled into unsubsidized loans. You need to talk to your FA department about how to do this.</p>
<p>The timing is unfortunate, but the original errors on FAFSA were not the school’s errors and they are not being dishonest. Putting 2 in school on FAFSA would have cut your EFC in half. As there is only one in school the EFC has now been corrected to what it should always have been. The school has no option but to adjust your aid once they realize the data entered on FAFSA was incorrect.
. The years we had 2 in school, we had to provide information every year to the respective schools giving the name of the sibling and the name of the school they were attending.</p>
<p>I guess I’m just frustrated with the whole situation. I came to this school because of the price, and low amount of loans I would be taking out. I filled out the FAFSA to the best of my knowledge, and they give me a financial aid estimate. I enroll here BASED on that financial aid, and they immediately slash my grant money in half. If they had told me that they were obligated to verify a certain number of FAFSAs, or that by some convoluted process, an $800 tax credit would result in $3400 increased EFC, I probably would have reconsidered going here. I don’t understand on what grounds they believe it is ethical to wait until AFTER students enroll to check FAFSAs. Doesn’t it make sense to verify this stuff when you first apply to financial aid in the first place? Or at least have some transparency on these policies.</p>
<p>One other thing is that on their main financial aid website, they don’t even mention the $2700 mandatory health insurance fee in the cost of attendance. They mention transportation and book costs, but not the health insurance fee. I assumed that they worked it into your tuition and fees, but that would be too honest. Why state a fee upfront when you can hide it away in the back of the bursar files and make it look like your school costs less?</p>
<p>The fact that I’m being informed of this verification process now (through my own research) shows that they make absolutely no attempt to explain processes to students.</p>
<p>Was the $3400 an actual change in your EFC or the amount by which your FA package changed last summer? Adding $800 to your parents income wouldn’t produce a $3400 increase in EFC but might have made you ineligible for certain types of grants and would definitely have reduced your Pell grant. </p>
<p>I agree that the student health insurance price is steep! Aren’t you covered by your parent’s health insurance? If so, submit the waiver now if you still can!</p>
<p>Rules are rules, and are meant to be applied equally to all. Consider this a lesson in learning how to read rules and instructions carefully.
I looked up the mandatory health insurance fee, and it isn’t mandatory if you can provide proof of other insurance coverage. If you stay on your parents’ coverage, you do not have to pay this health insurance fee. All you would then have to pay if the mandatory $327/semester Student Health Fee.</p>