Is anybody else having a probem with Parents’ Total Assets amount significantly decreasing on 2020-2021 FAFSA? For our family it was 14,700 for 2019-2020 FAFSA. For 2020-2021 it comes up as 7,500. Nothing really changed that much, except AGI is somewhat lower for 2018. Is it going to increase our EFC significantly? Thank you!
this is a change.
yes, it will increase your EFC but not by a lot…the difference will be probably be less than $500 as long as your income hasn’t changed. if your income and/or child’s income/assets have also increased, that will change EFC too.
@mom2collegekids Do you mean it changed for everybody? Does this usually happen every year (sorry, I am very new to this)? I keep thinking that may be we entered something incorrectly. If not, it feels like I am being penalized for cutting down on the expenses and saving to pay for college rather than take out loans. Frustrating…
I’m confused. If your income is about the same, and your assets are lower, why would your EFC go UP.
Your assets for 2020-2021 are almost half what they were the previous year.
How much lower was your AGI in 2018 vs 2019?
If your assets are less, and your income is the same…your EFC might actually go down a tad…a small tad.
This, however might not matter at all in terms of the need based financial aid you receive. Does your college meet full need for all?
The asset protection allowance was decreased this year for everyone. It doesn’t affect anyone who said no last year & still says no this year (all assets are protected & thus not considered for these people). Others will see a small EFC bump, all other things being equal.
Well, having less assets may be a problem because that presumably means that you have less discretionary money to spend on needs and wants, but it also generally means that the student’s FAFSA EFC will be lower than the previous year, all other things being equal.
So, can you specifically tell us what the problem is?
@thumper1 I may be confused on this as well. Like I said, I am new to this. The assets actually went up. Last year we did not have to report anything above 14,700 and we did not have that much, so we just answered ‘no’ to that question. This year, we have to report everything over 7,500 (at least, that’s the way I understand it). I am not as concerned about need-based federal aid. I know we don’t qualify for much anyway. I am just worried that if our EFC on FAFSA goes up quite a bit, it is going to affect institutional aid. I think the college meets full need, but for this year we paid about 10K less than our EFC for 2019-2020 and it makes a difference to us.
@kelsmom Thank you! Good to know I am not the only one affected.
@BelknapPoint Sorry, I might not be explaining this correctly. I am referring to the part of FAFSA that says ‘Parents’ Total Assets exceed’. Last year the protected amount was 14,700, so it did not affect us at all. This year it is only 7,500 and this year it makes a difference, because I’ve been working extra and saving for when the spring bill comes out.
If the college actually does meet full need, it’s very likely that they use their own EFC, based on a reporting instrument other than FAFSA, to calculate eligibility for institutional need-based aid. In other words, any change to FAFSA asset reporting requirements for 2020-2021 probably won’t make any difference for you.
Your first post was confusing. You are talking about the asset protection allowance going DOWN…not your parents assets going down. Is that correct.
So…how much in assets did they have to report? If they had to report $10,000 in assets this year, it would increase your EFC by about $560 or so.
A few years ago our parent asset protection allowance was over $30,000, last year it was $13,000 I think and now it is $6,900. It has changed a lot.
The FAFSA EFC formula gets updated every year.
There is an income protection allowance (table A 3) based on household size and number of students in college.
The income protection amount usually increases some every year.
The asset protection allowance (table A5) has been decreasing in recent years.
https://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/2021EFCFormulaGuide.pdf
You can calculate your FAFSA EFC with the formula I posted.
The worksheets and tables are all in the PDF.
Collegeboard EFC calculator also has been pretty accurate for us (select federal methodology)
If your income hasn’t changed, the amount of assets above the APA of $7,500 are assessed at about 5.6% towards FAFSA EFC I think, so your FAFSA EFC could increase by a few hundred dollars.
If you have big expenses coming up (fall property taxes around here are due soon/ or tuition bill for spring semester), you could pay them before filing FAFSA as you report assets as of the day you submit FAFSA.
Single parents always had an asset protection allowance that was very low. Mine was like $10k where if I had been married (based on age) it would have been $50k. Makes sense because of course a single parent has no need for assets!
Thank you everybody for your comments! It makes at least some sense now.