Did your parents use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool when they did your FAFSA?
@kelsmom When parental income fluctuates a lot year to year, isn’t there a process where the student can ask for a professional judgment to average the yearly income, or use some other process to “flatten” the highs and lows?
@MMRose @kelsmom can clarify…but I believe there is no “averaging” of incomes over years. However, if a family has a definite one time income bump that won’t repeat, sometimes a school will adjust for that one year and remove that one time bump.
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A professional judgment review has to comply with federal regulations and institutional policies. If income is adjusted, it’s based on something like removing a one-time income bump or better reflecting current income. The adjusted income is then used to recalculate taxes, and a new EFC is calculated. Many times, the result doesn’t change aid.
A school can do whatever they want with income when determining institutional aid, of course.
Why do work study for low wages. Where I live in Nashville you can work at a grocery store for $18 an hr. My daughter is working at a hotel where she works when she wants -$18 an hour in South Carolina.
Employers are desperate. You can make more than work study on your own. You can get a summer job too.
What am I missing ?
Wages earned in a work study job are not considered the following year on the FAFSA form.
But I do agree that jobs off campus can be terrific!
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Sounds like the student got merit, not need aid. So the FAFSA isn’t relevant….other than the loan.
All the schools are FAFSA only schools since they are MA state universities.
Right, but it looks like none of the schools offered him any need-based financial aid (except for the work study at Boston). If that is the case, it doesn’t matter how much he makes outside of work study because his expected family contribution is already the cost of attendance.
True. I misread the original post I thought it was an EFC of $23,000 not the net price calculator amount.
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It seems like he is saying EFC is 14,000 but the schools are expecting the family to pay 28,000 (plus the student loan?) which means no financial aid at all.
I didn’t realize the UMass schools could be so far from meeting the EFC for in-state students.
Unless the state has a guaranteed tuition program based on income, they wouldn’t.
That was my point - doing a FAFSA gets you access to the $5500 loan - but nothing else.
A part time job - if there’s flexibility and today there seems to be as businesses are desperate - would be far more lucrative than work study.
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Adding that a few state schools with huge endowments can meet full need for in-state students (Michigan) or even all students (UVA, UNC Chapel Hill).
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I meant Mass schools as that was the topic. They may have a low income program as some schools do - income below x and you get free tuition but I couldn’t find it if they do.
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Patiently waiting to find out why the family income varies a lot from year to year.
The UMass schools…all of them as noted…do not meet full need for all students and that includes instate residents.
If the OP would take the Direct Loan, they would be much closer to meeting their annual costs for college at some of these schools. The payback on $27,000 (the total Direct Loan for all for years…total) would be about $300 a month. Not sure why this isn’t on the table.
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Why do you need to know this? Isn’t it enough to know that the income varies? Not sure why knowing the reason for fluctuation is relevant – and it could be highly intrusive.
If the family has fluctuating income because they own a business or are self employed, this could very much affect the awarding of need based aid. Schools can use their discretion in terms of how they deal with deductions taken for business expenses and sometimes these are added back in as income.
The student doesn’t have to post here about why…but they do need a four year plan for funding college. Could their ability to pay get even lower in subsequent years? If so…then what?
Food for thought for the OP.
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I believe the original poster is including the direct loan in the UMASS Lowell and UMASS Dartmouth in his COA but that still brings him over budget. UMASS Boston he would be a commuter student but brings him under his budget of $17,000. I think he is referring to additional loans besides the direct loan? We don’t know his major but some of the other state schools like Worcester State University could bring him to his budget. It seems like there was a discrepancy on the net price calculator when his parents ran it. Moving forward some more information including the other schools he applied to would be helpful in getting him to where he needs to be.
And how exotic the intended major is…
Part of the Amherst and Lowell grants were need-based, but only a small amount.
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