<p>Just received my daughter's financial aid award letter for 13-14. It states that her estimated costs are approximately $4K more than 12-13. Last year she was awarded a grant for approximately $3K from Access UVA, and this year she did not receive anything from Access UVA. I don't understand this because our family income has not changed. Is this final? Any insight would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Did they replace grants with loans or work study?</p>
<p>The U. has adjusted some financial aid policies to save money, at the insistence of the Board. I believe they are making more people take out more federal loans and do work study in order to have 100% of their need met. You don’t need to accept work study, if you can afford the costs without it.</p>
<p>My dad says that it appeared that UVa for the first time this year (he’s filled the forms out for eight straight years now) was adding back certain pre-tax items to income. Primarily medical-related items that typically didn’t show up on a W-2.</p>
<p>So, just to clarify - since we’re incoming oos 1st year parents and want to know what to expect in the future. This year, our FA left us almost exactly with our FAFSA EFC to pay out of pocket. We are expecting our FAFSA EFC # to come down next year because we lost a considerable amount of income this year (about 25%) as compared to 2012. For a returning student, are you seeing FA keeping consistent with FAFSA #s or is it coming back with unexpected increases?</p>
<p>So based upon MechWahoo’s understanding, it is possible that they are adding flexible spending accounts back into income? (The maximum allowed in those accounts has dropped to only $2,500 a year because of a change in federal regulations). </p>
<p>Some people may have other types of medical spending accounts with larger amounts, particularly if they have high deductible health plans, which have become common. </p>
<p>Also, I wonder about tax-deductible employer cafeteria plans, which are sometimes used to pay for health insurance premiums of family members.</p>
<p>@charlie, well that would be seriously disappointing as being on an HSA means we have to put a higher $ amount into our plan to cover the deductible - but it is all spent on medical expenses since it’s a high-deductible plan ($4K deductible prior to insurance coverage). It’s basically a trade-off, lower premiums and higher deductible, but the non-taxable income amount is about the same as it would be with higher premiums and lower health spending account. But if UVA now considers the HSA contribution as income, but keeps the premium as not included, that is a significant swing that now impacts my decisions on health care plans, which just seems horrible if true.</p>
<p>I know my dad said that both HSA contributions and flex spending contributions are now added back to income. It didn’t seem to make a huge difference in my sibling’s financial aid, but that might have been due to hitting the 4-year maximum loan cap. The spread between COA and financial aid did increase.</p>
<p>charlieschm - they did increase the amount of the subsidized loan, as it is higher this year than it was last year. I just don’t get why she has been completely shut out of Access UVA since expenses are greater and income is the same.</p>
<p>UVa can shift people from direct aid to large amounts of Perkins loans if they wish and still say they are meeting 100% of financial need. As of now, UVa still has a maximum federal loan cap in effect, so after that is reached, AccessUVa is supposed to increase. I understand people usually hit that cap at the beginning of their last semester.</p>
<p>Dragas told the administration they had to freeze spending on AccessUVa, and these are some of the results.</p>