I just completed the FAFSA for my 2 oldest kids. Kid #1 will be a senior in college next year, kid #2 will be a freshman in college so this is the first FAFSA for her. Filled out both, used IRS data retrieval tool for my husband and my info, and for her Kid #2’s info. It wouldn’t work for some reason for kid #1 so I had to manually complete it.
When finished, Kid #1s EFC was about $4,000 more than it was last year (when we only had one kid in college) and twice as much as Kid #2’s EFC is. I would think, if anything, having 2 kids in college would make Kid #1’s go down.
Our income is obviously the same - if anything, Kid #1 has a little bit less in her savings than Kid #2 who is more frugal. In their jobs - kid #2 made more money than kid #1 HOWEVER the adjusted gross income for kid #1 was significantly higher because it had to include taxable portions of her scholarships from last year. I feel like this is part of the issue and I felt like I should not have reported it but I had to report it on the W2 so it had to be reported on the FAFSA.
What am I missing? Any thoughts on why the EFC is higher for one (almost double) what the other one is?
No. It was included in her adjusted gross income - the IRS data tool wouldn’t work so I had to manually type in the AGI, then when I tried to input the part of it that was the scholarship I got this error message: “You reported a total amount … that is high for the other income amounts reported”. I called the FAFSA help desk and they said to put in a zero on 43D.
If your student had taxable scholarship money that was included in AGI, that money needs to be reported in FAFSA question 43. d., where it is then backed out of the student’s income. The advice you got from the FAFSA help desk is wrong (surprise, surprise).
see, that’s what I keep thinking! But since I had the error message it wouldn’t let me enter it - that’s why I called fafsa in the first place. Then after getting the EFC I even called back and they confirmed that I should put zero on 43D. It just doesn’t make sense because that makes it seem like she is making that much per year in income. Is there any way to fix it? The FAFSA woman I talked to last night simply kept repeating the stock answer as to how EFC is calculated.
What is the student’s AGI from the 2019 IRS 1040, line 8b? This should be reported on FAFSA line 36. How much of this AGI is from taxable scholarships? This should be reported on FAFSA line 43d. Are you getting the error message when you attempt to make the FAFSA line 43d entry, even though the line 43d entry is less than or equal to the 2019 AGI entered on FAFSA line 36?
8b is 17,640 and yes it was reported on line 36. taxable scholarship portion is $15,492 and I tried to report that on 43d but got that error message. When I called the FAFSA they told me to put zero on 43d because “the scholarship is already included on line 36 - you don’t want to report it twice” which I really felt was wrong but that’s what two different fafsa employees told me. I wish so much the IRS DRT would have worked - I honestly don’t know why it wouldn’t for hers, I triple checked everything.
Daughter #1 goes to Notre dame which also requires a CSS profile - do you suppose that will override the FAFSA? Maybe I’m stressing over nothing but I’m annoyed because it does seem to be in error.
It’s “reported twice” because the first time (line 36) it’s part of taxable student income, and the second time (line 43d) it’s subtracted from student income. Taxable scholarships are not considered by FAFSA when computing the FAFSA EFC, and the entry on line 43d is how that money gets removed from the FAFSA EFC calculation.
Is the error message just an advisory thing, or does its appearance prevent you from entering 15,492 on line 43d and then continuing?
so now that my problem has been determined (more than likely) - what are my options? it’s already been submitted and when I called to ask they told me (again) that 43D should have been zero = so I need to change it somehow. Any thoughts?
I got that warning message when I entered my daughter’s income on her last FAFSA (several years ago now) because of the large scholarship being so much higher than other things on the forms, but it did let me continue when I acknowledged the warning (don’t remember exactly how, but on we went).
Can you update the amount on 43d now? As long as it’s not more than AGI, you should be able to do so. If you haven’t tried that, please do … and let us know if it worked.
I did it! I finally got in to revise it and put in the scholarship amount and it kept giving me the same error but I was able to just keep clicking next and finally it took it. Now daughter #1’s EFC is just slightly lower than #2’s - which makes sense because her actual income is slightly less. Thank you so much for your help. Thank you for confirming that I’m not crazy and I should have gone with my first extinct (even though it wouldn’t let me AND both FAFSA experts I talked to were wrong).
