Have your ever experienced your financial aid being updated?

A student has seen two colleges updated their financial aids before the national college decision day after received their financial packages. Is it because the school has access to the current tax filing or they encourage the admitted student to accept their offer of admission? Thanks for sharing.

They are sweetening the offer, or they have scholarships or grants that have been refused by the original winner (who might have decided to go to another school).

Agree the schools are incentivizing the student to attend.

Just make sure the student understands what the new aid is…for example, is it need or merit based? Is it just a one time award or for 4 years? Are there minimum GPA requirements for renewal? etc.

I have heard of several financial aid packages revised due to prospective loss of income for 2020, making the 2018 income figures used for upcoming school year financial aid irrelevant. Assets submitted as of day of aid applications are also very much affected by current events. It only makes sense

I’ve been hearing that families are deciding on gap years, resets on the college app process etc etc. I get it. Had this happened my son’s senior year of high school , his college outcome might be have been very different.

It doesn’t make sense to commit $X when that X is upwards to 80k when things are so uncertain. Those who have their own businesses may be seeing little or no income. The market has crashed, and occasional blips up are not dependable and who has any faith on what will be available to pay for college? Those who were in position to pay for college, albeit painfully, are finding that the risk of committing this kind of money not a good idea.

Two of my neighbors who have kids in private colleges have decided to take the year off next year and take courses locally which would cut the bills drastically. One other is waiting for college response for a year away and transferable credits. Why pay for a turbulent year with possibilities of online courses at top prices? Also, some families are not happy about having to pay for off campus housing when school has been cancelled. My friend just went to pick up sophomore from such a living arrangement and is in the hook for payment through July or August. They are not renewing and return to the school will require university housing for the student in 2021 or transfer is a major option seriously considered.

@compiler did you send the school your 2019 tax return info? If not, the school doesn’t have “access to the current tax filing”.

One of our kids received increases to merit aid from most of the colleges to which he was accepted.

I would do as suggested above…see if the aid proposed for 2020-2021 is something for all four years, or is it a one time bump.

Today is decision day, isn’t it? I’d be on the phone with the schools to find out how much aid is guaranteed each year for the next 4 years. Now isn’t really the time for suppositions or polling random people on the internet for opinions. Call the schools. I hope the extra money makes one of them affordable.

@austinmshauri some colleges have moved decision day to June 1

The financial office said the adjustment is because of the 2019 tax returns. They probably had access to tax returns after 4/15.

They said they had access to your 2019 tax returns, but you had never sent that info?

And this year, the deadline to file was not 4/15, so that would not be an important factor.

I did not know that college fin aid and FAFSA would access other year returns without some authorization. Some PROFILE schools do want to see multiple years of returns. Is that your situation ?

Nope. The college cannot just access your tax returns. The way they access is if you link to to the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, but for the 2020-2021 academic year, that access would be for the 2018 tax return…not the 2019 one.

The financial aid has been updated. The end.

You have asked for help on numerous threads, and received good advice. It would be helpful if you shared details of your experience in getting more (I assume) FA. That’s how this community works…give and take of information to benefit all of us. TIA for the consideration…

The financial office updated FA by itself. They said it is because of tax returns. I saw two schools updated financial aids while the others did not. Whether can the school verify something by tax returns, I do not know but FAFSA seems asking you to allow checking tax returns. Probably some experts can answer it. Thanks for your contribution to this forum.

Your student’s college financial aid was not and cannot be updated using information from tax returns that the taxpayer did not authorize access to. Period.

I agree with @BelknapPoint I have known folks who authorized other year’s returns for reconsideration of award. In fact I advise bringing up drastic reductions in income if it should happen as financial aid is heavily dependent debt on income from two years prior to the college year.

But a college is not going to get copies of your other year returns without permission of the owners of the returns.

How is the EFC determined, by one’s self reporting without verification of tax returns?

The only way a college would have your 2019 tax return information is if YOU sent it to them. There are families appealing aid now because their 2019 income and now is so much less than what 2018 was. Those folks would have been asked to provide documentation of the 2019 income…and sending signed 2019 tax returns would be likely.

But @compiler if you never sent the colleges your 2019 tax returns there is NO WAY that the college (s) would have that info.

Weren’t you considering appealing financial aid? Did you do so? Did you send your 2019 tax return to the colleges?

Nothing like this just poof happens. It would only be because YOU sent them the 2019 tax return. Did you?

The FAFSA often links to the tax return for the year (2018 for 2020-21 School Year) through the IRS Retrieval Tool. If that does not happen, a school might request the IRS transcript or actual return during a Verification process.

A school can “request” whatever they want, but the IRS will not release private tax information to a third party without the taxpayer’s approval or a court order.

If a school updated a financial aid offer for the 2020-2021 academic year using 2019 tax information, that could only have happened with the taxpayer’s cooperation.