Huge increase in 2021-22 FAFSA EFC score with additional child in college ??

Paying for College
1

Hi,
I just finished filing FAFSA for 2021-2022 for 3 kids that will be in college. However I received higher EFC score then last year(2020-2021) with 2 kids in college.

Year 2020-2021 was around 15000 with 2 kids but this year 2021-2022 is 45000 with 3 kids. This doesn’t make sense as my expectation was to receive lower EFC score with more kids in college for next school year.

There has not been any changes to our family income/finance( only additional 5K+). We have compared last year’s form and this year’s form printout to ensure we entered the correct info.

Thanks in advance and any help will be appreciated.

2

Hmmmmm. Are you sure everything looks the same, other than the additional $5k? I encourage you to double check, line by line. Did you use the IRS DRT?

3

Any chance you did a tax deferred retirement account rollover in 2019?

4

Thanks for your quick response.
No I didn’t rollover any tax deferred retirement account and I did use IRS DRT. I am W2 without any other income source so it’s pretty simple income source.
I actually downloaded the worksheet and calculated myself manually using the charts provided in the pdf document for gov site which the EFC score came out 12010.

Currently it’s in process as I just completed this evening, perhaps I need to wait until this application completes the process.

Any other thoughts or what can I do to clarify or correct this?

5

If I were you, I would try calling the Fafsa help line. I had to call on an issue we had and found them to be very helpful. Maybe they can explain better if something is different or if there is an error somewhere.

6

@Sctomom21 Thanks, I will try to call the help line and hopefully I will talk to someone nice and helpful.

7

The FAFSA was just released October 1st. It is possible there is a glitch in the system. Years ago, I caught one. I could tell that the EFC was not right, just looking at the information. My boss & I hand calculated to make sure it was incorrect, which it was. We reported it to Federal Student Aid, and I imagine other financial aid professionals also did do; the glitch was fixed. I am not saying that is what happened here, but it is possible. I would contact one of your kids’ current schools to talk with a financial aid officer. They can work with you to figure out what’s going on.

8

Print out a copy of your FAFSA, and go line by line. Check for added zeros, or a misplaced decimal point.

And compare line by line from one of last years (well…item by item) to make sure there isn’t any huge difference from the previous year.

You completed this for three kids and all got the same high EFC?

Check your tax information from 2019 as well…maybe there is a mistake there.

9

They won’t be able to check the tax info due to DRT. It’s returned blank now for the applicant, I believe.

10

Thanks everyone,
As recommended, I have compared line by line with last year’s form and this year’s form and they have same info with little difference in my cash holding. Double checked my tax return. Yes, I have completed for all 3 kids and received similar EFC of 47000+. It looks like my next steps are as below,

  1. Call FAFSA help center. If not resolved.
  2. Call the kids college Financial Aid Office.
  3. Hoping it’s a glitch with FAFSA’s system.
11

Do let us know what happened. You did indicate three in college, right?

12

Yes, definitely report back, please.

13

Hi all,
I tried to call FAFSA contact all day and ended up in endless loop in the system.

Is there a different number then what I found in their site as I called ‘800-433-3243’ ?

Does anyone know where we can report this issue via email/ or some other method then via phone call?

I also heard from other parent that their EFC number came out double from last year as well.

14

I would bypass the helpline and contact the school directly. Ask to speak with a manager. Explain what you experienced and what others have said. Ask if they will run a hand calculation to check the EFC.

15

@thumper1, yes I will have 3 kids in college.
I will try to call school tomorrow and see what happens for my 2 older kids. However for my youngest one who will be in college next school year as freshman, I am concerned about all these schools we are looking at will use our high EFC number to calculate any potential scholarships.
This is really frustrating, if there are changes to the rules then I’m sure I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. My EFC number when I had one kid in college is lower then having 3 kids in college. This just doesn’t make sense.

16

Did you enter your W-2 income incorrectly as your child’s W-2 income?

17

Your concerns are exactly why you contact the schools directly. As you learn more from the first two FAOs, you can pick one of your 3rd child’s targets, to start.

Whether it turns out to be something you need correct via a resubmission, or something they can submit, then you likely need call the other targets to ask how they want you to proceed.

Be diplomatic.

18

@skooseven

You mention scholarships as they relate to your EFC. Are you talking about merit scholarships? Or are you talking about need based scholarships?

Merit awards that do not consider financial need will not care what is on your FAFSA.

19

Thanks all for your replies,

I contacted my older kids school Financial Aid Office and rep was able to provide the numbers they see in the fields where I couldn’t see per DRT where it had my 401K rollover amount as income.

I don’t recall seeing any questions about rollover when I was filling out the form for the first time but then again I could of missed it.

School will send me some information on what documents to provide to correct the information for that school. So that will take care of the older kids. For my younger one I tried to go thru the correction process and I was not able to find any additional field that I can make this correction.

Now that I confirmed the root cause, I did search the web and found many folks had/have this issue and only solution is to contact schools as no option is provided to correct this rollover issue on FAFSA site.

I found a lot of post about this issue going back to 2015, I am surprise FAFSA did not update their system giving options to correct the rollover issue.

Again thanks everyone for your input as this was lessons learn moment for me.

20

Very common mistake (which is why @thumper1 asked about it in an early reply).