I found the names. The first to do it was @bxgirl , and @phemrajani was also able to do it. I still don’t know how they got so lucky!
I called the FAFSA number and they sent me a copy of my SAR. I made the change by hand based on directions from one of these threads (I’d have to find it) and then I mailed the change back in. FAFSA sent me an email a couple of weeks later saying that the change had been made. You’ll also probably want to call each school to double check that they received the new EFC. Let me know if you have any questions that I can help with.
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@reenielo read the above post!!!
Here was the old thread about rollovers:
I was the one who corrected it, but it was not online, they sent me the paper work and I had to mail it back.
The caveat is I did the correction, some other college came in and overwrote my data. There was no traceability on who did it, I called FAFSA and asked them how can they build a system where the college can change it and nobody can tell me who changed it. They asked me to call all 10 colleges and see who changed it, so I just called the one college where my child will go and asked them what they have on the file, it is a CSS school so I am safe that they have correct information.
My suggestion focus on the school where you will go and call them , if you think you will get more money from other colleges then call them. We do not qualify for any aid so there is no point in wasting my time to call each college.
I got an email alert and here is my the summary of my FAFSA application - Parent of Two, Highly Knowledgeable in Financial Aid Matters - ASK ME ANYTHING! - #445 by phemrajani
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The school probably changed the information because technically, YOU can’t change anything that was transferred by the IRS. Although the change was made on the FAFSA end, it was still at your request with no documentation . That’s not allowed per regulations.
Schools should be screening for changes made after the tax information was transferred from the IRS. One of your schools caught it, as I would have - systems should be in place to identify when changes are made. I would have handled it differently, but the outcome would have been the same … instead of changing the information, I would have reset the school system to recognize the original FAFSA & locked it (then I would have reached out to you to ask for proof of the rollover so I could do the fix to stay in compliance). The fact that only one school made a change is, IMO, sloppy on the part of the other schools. As I mentioned previously, I am not aware that this change is supposed to be made on request by the FAFSA folks, and schools are only allowed to make the changes with proper documentation of the rollover. I still think that the FAFSA folks shouldn’t have allowed you to send them this change, and the school that didn’t allow it probably takes compliance seriously.
I’m not saying that the people here who went through FAFSA are in the wrong. But it can definitely cause problems for the student if the FAFSA folks, in trying to be helpful, operate in a manner that can cause schools to be out of compliance. If they don’t catch it & request proper documentation, the school can be sanctioned.
So update to mine… while it was corrected on the FAFSA end… we are still needing to do the verification at almost every school. Quite honestly it’s tedious and a complete pain.
Follow up: we just today got an email that one of the schools made a correction to my daughter’s FAFSA. I panicked thinking they had undone my correction above. Breathed a sigh of relief to see that they actually brought our EFC DOWN by 44 dollars. 
So just to read tea leaves…if the correction came yesterday, does that mean it’s definitely from a school she has not heard from yet? Or could it just be from one she is already admitted to that we have already received financial packages from.
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Sorry - no way to know who made the change.
You may recall we are in them midst of appeals with several schools. We just got an email that one of the colleges changed our daughter’s EFC as well. It’s now in line with about what it should be. Question is - our daughter applied to 13 schools so her current FAFSA lists 10 schools, a few of which she now has no interest in. Should she go back now and swap those out for some of the schools that she had taken off to accommodate the extra three? The thinking is that if she ends up picking a school that doesn’t look at fin aid appeals until after May 1, we will know that the EFC has been updated and maybe they will see it? Or is it that once they download the data, they don’t go back?
The answer is that it depends. I worked at schools where we did an initial financial aid package. We then screened for updates to the FAFSA that were received, which was not always done immediately. We reviewed them and determined whether we would accept the changes. If another school made a change, we’d look at the change & determine whether we needed to follow up with the student to obtain documentation that might help us resolve the differences; we wouldn’t change anything just based on what another school did, though. Other times, we’d stick with the original FAFSA and lock that in. If we saw any kind of change to income information, we would reach out to the student to find out if there was documentation that we didn’t have … but we would definitely not accept the changes without documentation. A school that isn’t watching for changes might let an update slip through, but they would still need to repackage your aid manually, since the computer typically only does the initial package - changes are done by hand.
I wouldn’t count on other schools accepting any changes.
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Completely make sense. Thanks so much for this.
If we can choose how many years to pay off a student loan, is there a downside to choosing the longest time with the lowest payments (and most interest) - but then if we want to make extra payments earlier to pay off faster we have that option?
I understand that taking longer to pay means more interest, but then we also have the flexibility to either pay off faster or slower, but choosing a short time frame means you are locked into paying faster. Am I getting this right?
You are sort of right. But you have to be disciplined enough to do this oay early thing…will you be?
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I hope! Does the interest rate change whether you do a longer or shorter loan? (Federal loan or private loan)? Thanks!
Honestly, I have no idea. My kids chose the standard 10 year repayment…but their undergrad loans were paid off far before the 10 year period ended.
The interest rate for federal loans is fixed, and each new loan (new year) has a different rate (based on federal regulations). You can enroll in an income based repayment plan for more than the ten year standard repayment timeframe. Current federal loan repayment plans: Federal Student Aid. Interest rates don’t change. There is no penalty for paying them off sooner.
Private loans all have their own terms.
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We have private loans and chose to start interest payment immediately to get better interest rates, plus making the balance due more manageable. Our two oldest did co-signer release a year after graduation, so we aren’t responsible for those loans anymore (our 26 year old has paid them all and our 24 should be done in a year or two).
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Has anyone heard from any college financial aid offices about how they will handle the change to SAI from EFC for existing students?
With two in at the same time, we receive a small amount of aid. Highly unlikely we would qualify under new guidelines. How likely is it that a school will pull aid from those who currently receive it?
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