When I refiled my FAFSA a few months ago, FAFSA was allowing the use of last year’s tax info to complete the application. However, my dad made a significant amount less income than he did last year, and he wasn’t able to use this year’s tax info on the application. Am I able to resubmit the FAFSA with this year’s tax info to reflect my dad’s lower income? He seems to think I’d be able to get more financial aid if we were able to use the most recent tax info.
No - you have to use 2015 on the FAFSA. You can call the school’s financial aid office to ask whether they allow students to petition for special circumtances professional judgment reviews based on lower income in 2016. Some schools allow it, while others do not.
For this year’s (2017-18 school year) fafsa, you use 2015 tax information. You cannot use 2016.
If you have had a change in income, you can file for a reconsideration with the school you are going to attend. Go to the FA web page and see if there is a ‘special circumstances’ form and complete it with the information. For my daughter, there were sections for loss of income (employment), death of parent, illness of family member, etc. For loss of income, there is usually a chart they want you to complete with prior year’s income, current year’s, letter of termination, possibility of getting another job, etc.
Just curious, why is 2015 tax information used for 2017-18 school year?
Because the goal was for students and parents to complete financial aid forms earlier, so that financial aid letters might be received earlier in the application cycle.
Before the FAFSA was available in January, and required prior year tax information. If a student wanted to file FAFSA early, they had to estimate income and then go back and update FAFSA after taxes were filed.
Now the FAFSA is available in October and requires prior, prior year tax information. That tax return should be completed by then, so it speeds up the aid process.
Next year’s FAFSA will use the lower 2016 income, but ask the college if they do an adjustment, they might or might not.
There has always been a base year. For many years, it was the previous tax year. There were studies done that indicated that using the year prior to the most recent tax year would allow families to get an earlier understanding of their awards.