<p>Does FAFSA and other financial aid groups take into effect high medical bills ?My wife and I have roughly a yearly income combined of about $55,000 but she was just recently hospitalizied for cancer and had surgery ,so even with a fairly decent insurance program I am expecting to pay a fair amount out of pocket due to week long hospital stay, and multiple other medical costs due to chemo in a couple of weeks that might be on going for a few months. Also she will be on short term disability for awhile. Could we possibly be eligible for the Pell Grant also?</p>
<p>There are two questions on the FAFSA that should refer to medical bills...one asks for the bills for this past year and the next asks for expected bills in the upcoming year. If for some reason you don't end up with a good financial package you can always write to the financial aid office at the school about the medical expenses specifically and use that as a reason for a review.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>Actually, I don't recall FAFSA asking anything about medical bills. However, if you call the financial aid office of your school, they might be willing to review your aid file for special circumstances. My father had cancer and our out of pocket expenses last year totaled to over half of our household income, and right now he's out of work and scheduled to have more surgery. I contacted the financial aid office of the schools my brother and I will be going to next year, and they instructed us to send documentation of the expenses so they could adjust our "expected family contribution" accordingly. So we sent them an inch thick stack of copies of bills from doctors, hospitals, insurace companies, home care agencies, and pharmacies. I'm still waiting to see how our aid packages change.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Actually, I don't recall FAFSA asking anything about medical bills
Me either. I fill out the FAFSA & PROFILE on line and the questions it asks are automatically filled in from much previous info- but while there is a space in PROFILE to add comments and explanations, they care more about income than outgo.
IF your income changes you can submit updated info to schools themselves.
To check eligibility for PELL- try one of the finaid calculators.</p>
<p>FAFSA does not ask about medical bills. Any special circumstances needs to be given to each individual school for consideration.</p>
<p>brucesprings,</p>
<p>We just received a FAFSA adjustment due to medical bills. We did submit the information to the Feds, but they did not make any adjustment. We also sent the info to school, with a letter explaining our circumstances. They contacted FAFSA. </p>
<p>Our expenses out of poccket for 2004 were almost $15,000.The Feds used $13,000 of it to reduce our adjusted gross. As a result, our EFC was reduced to a little under 1/2 of what it was. </p>
<p>There is a God. </p>
<p>(If you need any more info, contact me!)</p>