<p>my life is officially over. i just found out the pell efc has to be 4041 and mine is 4103. they changed it in january from 4110 which is crazy. now i know for a fact i won't be eligible for the gates millenium scholarship and all that hard work is down the drain. i am also now ineligible for the academic competiveness grant also. what am i going to do.</p>
<p>my life was much simpler when i first submitted my fafsa and my efc was 3656.:(</p>
<p>Can you go over your numbers and make sure there is nothing that could be adjusted by a small amount on your tax return to adjust that AGI? Have you put your numbers into the formula to make sure there is no stupid error or oversight-perhaps a deduction that does not really help your tax situation might adjust the EFC by that all important $70</p>
<p>[IFAP</a> - Information for Financial Aid Professionals](<a href=“http://www.ifap.ed.gov/IFAPWebApp/currentEFCInformationYearPag.jsp?p1=2008-2009&p2=c]IFAP”>http://www.ifap.ed.gov/IFAPWebApp/currentEFCInformationYearPag.jsp?p1=2008-2009&p2=c)</p>
<p>do they account savings and checkings account in the efc because i know they’re lower than what i put on the fafsa and i also believe my mother has a negative net worth because she’s in debt but i don’t know how to put that in.</p>
<p>The FAFSA does not look at debt. The CSS profile does not take consumer debt into consideration. If your mom has debt from unreimbursed medical expenses, taking care of an eldery family member, etc. you/she can inform the school who will probably take it into consideration when putting together a FA package for you.</p>
<p>I would be going over my numbers with a fine tooth comb. Make sure you understand every question. Make sure you are positively entering the correct numbers.
I am sure you are a very bright person, but it seems you have a lot riding on $62.00. Go over it and the taxes again. I hope you find an error somewhere.</p>
<p>could your parents put a bit of money in an IRA, bringing down your Adjusted Gross Income and maybe your EFC? I would try and play with the numbers a bit. Do you qualify for the simplified needs test? If so, then the numbers you need to work with are the income numbers.</p>
<p>"do they account savings and checkings account in the efc because i know they’re lower than what i put on the fafsa "</p>
<p>Why did you put a higher number on the FAFSA than you really had- if the day you filed your numbers were lower than you stated, you can correct it- if you have since spent that money, I do not think you can make a correction.</p>
<p>The FAFSA does not care about debt: if your mom owed $100,000 and had $100,000 in cash, she would have to put $100,000 as an asset, but if she used all that money to pay off all that debt, she would put $0 as an asset.</p>
<p>Every one has an asset protection amount- $15k+ for a single person and $40k+ for a couple in most age groups, so there is no need to divest yourself of all monies in order to file FAFSA, but in your case, I agree with the above posts, check every single number to see if you can get the EFC to be pell elegible. I don’t think an IRA would do it, unless that was using money already in savings which are over the asset limit</p>
<p>Run your FAFSA numbers through the FinAid calculator-- it should give you the same number you got from FAFSA. But it will also tell you exactly how that number was arrived at-- how much from student income, student assets, parent’s income, and parent’s assets. It will also show the protection allowances for each of these categories.</p>
<p>Student assets are severely assessed-- at 20%. So a drop in reported student assets of $311 should result in a decrease in EFC of $62. I’d look there first, and correct any input error.</p>