Report: Financial Aid Process Is Too Confusing

<p>This quote is absolutely true. The fin aid process is especially confusing for first generation college students and parents who went to college in another country. My parents are from Eastern Europe and they had to learn about fin aid from scratch. The FAFSA should clearly note that it is merely a tool in helping colleges identify who gets need-based aid. My parents came from a country where college had a nominal cost, and FAFSA EFC made it sound like colleges guarantee “affordability”. Also, EFC sounds presumptuous (like the government is telling you what you should spend). Lastly, loans need to be clearly identified as such (I saw them placed under aid) and it should be made clear that you can decline them. My college still has “loan counseling” and “loan promissory note” under my “to-do list” even though I declined taking loans (my scholarship covered full tuition).</p>

<p>As long as there are federal student loans, these will be considered “financial aid” … because they ARE. Folks may not consider them financial aid, but they are. President Obama’s promise to make college more affordable includes Pell grants for more people (the EFC threshold is higher this year than originally planned) and … you guessed it … more access to loans (Direct Lending to make borrowing easier). Loans remain the primary source of aid for many, many students. Borrowing responsibly is a reasonable investment in one’s education.</p>

<p>Coolweather, if the school is verifying your file, they will update your FAFSA (and Profile) based on the tax returns. However, because the initial packaging run may be done by computer before your verification is completed, I would suggest updating the FAFSA as soon as you have filed the return. For Profile, you have to contact each school to find out how they want you to submit the changes, since you can’t update the Profile online.</p>

<p>Schools with limited endowments that include these roughly 10%-of-COA federal loans as aid are able to offer education to roughly 10% more needy students. If you were one of these 10% of students, I bet you’d be glad such loans are included as aid.</p>

<p>Verification frequency: I have seen the figure that 30% of the students who fill out the FAFSA nationwide, are “randomly” selected for verification. I deal with the entire senior class of an inner city HS and I think it runs about 40%. Posters on CC have written about being verified one year, never, or all 4 years of their student’s college career. </p>

<p>There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it as far as I can see–the oddest ones are households who clearly have “no visible means of support” but do not get selected for verification at all. The saddest ones are students who have been in legal guardianship for huge portions of their lives, with persons who are very unorganized, have NO copies of the legal guardianship document, the probate court has NO records that are computerized that far back, student has no recollection what year as a toddler they were put in guardianship. These students are classified as Independent (due to being in legal guardianship) but without the paperwork–no paperwork, no financial aid, no college. I had 2 last year, even chased down to the probate court to try to peel loose the information–no luck. Very sad.</p>

<p>To make the EFC make sense with non-college-going population I deal with, I usually refere to the FAFSA as a number-crunching computer, and the EFC is “this is how much EXTRA money the government THINKS your family can spend on your college education per year.” That’s as clear as I can make–any suggestions are welcome.</p>

<p>Kelsmom, what is the EFC threshhold this year? I had it but…</p>

<p>radimom, I usually talk to socioeconomically mixed audiences (from zero to very high EFC), and sometimes to more homogeneous low-EFC groups. For the low-income families, I want to make sure they understand that their EFC might very well be zero. For the high-income people, I want to galvanize them to go run an EFC calculator, because the number will probably be higher than they expect. It’s tricky to get both messages across in the same talk. </p>

<p>I usually put up a chart of example EFC’s, based on different income levels and zero assets. Then I put up another chart of example EFC’s for the same income level with varying assets. I tell them that it would be nice if each family got to tell colleges how much they can afford, but instead it’s the other way around - they tell <em>you</em> how much they think you can afford. If you find this a reasonable number, great! If it looks high to you, then we go into other options - starting with working and saving as much as you can ahead of time. Some students in very low-income families are already working help with household expenses, but I do meet students who haven’t worked yet because their parents think they won’t get financial aid if they do.</p>

<p>Radiimom, the students whose guardianship papers are lost should be pursuing a dependency override. </p>

<p>EFC threshhold … for Pell? It’s currently 5273 (new schedule is not out yet). At the higher EFC levels, though, sometimes there is no payment at less than 12 credits … and the payments for less than 12 credits from 4301-5273 are kind of funky.</p>

<p>See these for dependency override:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.kidscounsel.org/dependency%20override.pdf[/url]”>http://www.kidscounsel.org/dependency%20override.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
[FinAid</a> | Professional Judgment | Dependency Overrides](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Dependency Overrides - Finaid)</p>

<p>another couple of questions on verification, which was touched on above: </p>

<p>who requests verifcation, a college, or fafsa (dept of ed)? if the former, is it possible that one college might ask for verification but another does not? This question, of course, assumes a new incoming freshman where different colleges are in play for a few months, vs an existing student.</p>

<p>does any info from a verification get communicated to all the colleges that are tied to the fafsa?</p>

<p>this prompts another question: does verification occur with the CSS, or is this only a FAFSA thing, a dept of ED thing? or are theree two kinds of verification in college FA, federal FAFSA verification from the dept of ed, and CSS verification?</p>

<p>Alright guys im looking for financial aid and am under the impression i can get it, after reading a couple of your conversations my question is: is financial aid real or a scam i am completely broke at 17 and have dreams of medical school how do i go about doing that?</p>

<p>Roderick, FAFSA verification is communicated with the ED, but Profile is not (it’s institutional, and each school uses it its own way). </p>

<p>Whether or not the verification changes get reported to other schools sort of depends on software used (on the part of each school) and school-specific policies regarding updated FAFSA’s. For example, my school is very large, so we are unable to screen out FAFSA updates made by another school; smaller schools may choose not to load in a transaction that is the result of an update made by another school. We screen for EFC changes, and if we verified but another school made a change, we will reset to the FAFSA transaction on which we verified (might be higher or lower EFC - but we have to go on the info provided to OUR office). So the answer is, while the verification might get communicated electronically to another college, that college will not use another school’s verification. It is possible that one school might verify & another may not verify that same student. And by the way, many returning students put more than one school code on their FAFSA’s … in fact, some returning students try to get aid at two schools at once, believe it or not.</p>

<p>thanks, kels. “verification is communicated to the ED.” Who prompts verification, the school, or ED, or both can due to conflicts or questions either party sees?</p>

<p>also, you mentioned that other schools are aware of results of verification (understood that what they do with the info varies). To be clear: I assume that it wd be all schools which received the FAFSA that is being verified. In this case, does it matter whether the FAFSA was sent to a bunch of schools at once or in different sends? </p>

<p>For example, if you sent the FAFSA in a single ‘send’ to schools 1,2, and 3 and get verified, schools 1,2, and 3 would receive the new info. What if the a fafsa were sent to school 1 , then at a later time to school 2, then to school 3 in three different sends - would all three still get this info?</p>

<p>Beyond the verification communication that I am inquiring about, I am also trying to ascertain whether you can have different fafsas for different schools - for whatever reason ; cd be that when we sent fafsa to school 1, it was an estimate, then later fafsa was more accurate, but school1 is out of the running and so was not sent this correction (for example).</p>

<p>Radio, here is a good place to start: [Student</a> financial aid in the United States](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_financial_aid_in_the_United_States]Student”>Student financial aid in the United States - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>Once a student is selected for verification, all subsequent transactions will also be selected for verification. </p>

<p>Updates made during verification are sent to ED. Some schools do it in a way that only sends the updates to ED, while the software used by other schools will transmit the updates to all schools that are listed on the transaction the school updates. Since other schools are not using the transaction another school updates, it shouldn’t affect the student at other schools. If school 1, 2, and 3 are on one transaction, any changes made by any of these schools would only go to 1, 2, or 3. If you removed those schools and sent another transaction to 4, 5, and 6, changes made by 4, 5, or 6 would only be received by 4, 5, or 6 (assuming the school does transmit the info in a manner that prompts it to be sent to these other schools when updates are made). </p>

<p>Realize, though, that once a student is selected for verification, it is the STUDENT who is selected … not the transaction … so all schools will then know that the student was selected for verification after that point.</p>

<p>You should not be filing more than one FAFSA in a year. You can remove a school code at any point, if you choose, but you wouldn’t do a whole new FAFSA for school B than you did for School A. You could update the FAFSA that was sent to School A by adding School B and removing School A, if you want.</p>

<p>ok. thanks for the clarification on the multiple fafsa over time and to different schools.</p>

<p>also,</p>

<p>“Once a student is selected for verification,”</p>

<p>who selects the student, only the college, or only ED, or at times both/either?</p>

<p>*Alright guys im looking for financial aid and am under the impression i can get it, after reading a couple of your conversations my question is: is financial aid real or a scam i am completely broke at 17 and have dreams of medical school how do i go about doing that? *</p>

<p>Well…</p>

<p>Where did you apply?</p>

<p>What is your FAFSA EFC?</p>

<p>Is your family low income? </p>

<p>Did your family say that they can’t contribute anything?</p>

<p>What are your stats?</p>

<p>P.S. Don’t borrow much if your intention is med school.</p>

<p>The title says it all.</p>

<p>It’s very easy to file a FAFSA and perhaps one other form if you have a regular income tax return. I was able to do my taxes and FAFSA in just a couple of hours. Applying for scholarships is not that hard, either.</p>

<p>What is hard is knowing how much to take out in loans, what you will be paying on these with interest, etc.</p>

<p>Federal loans are not a scam, but they are intended to bridge a gap, from what you can contribute through work, to making it possible (if only just) to attend school. They are not intended to keep kids from having to work, or to make life easy. And that fact is terribly under-publicized.</p>

<p>That said, paying off my student loans has given me awesome credit. I was one of those that borrowed just enough and then went straight to work and paid pretty much every penny I could until they were paid off. If you do that, which means you need to be using birth control for all that time (I suggest at least two kinds, if not three, until you are debt-free), you will “win” the financial aid game.</p>

<p>I am very sad to hear about those guardianship cases. What about their case workers? That whole system is so under-funded that being in guardianship at the end should surely be grounds for being considered independent.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Mine doesn’t. Ask for dad’s tax return and do it yourself. You only have to copy like, two boxes. When I asked my mom what to do she told me, “You filed your own taxes for the last two years, you do it.” She gave me her taxes and after I was all done, she did agree to co-sign for loans within reason.</p>

<p>A college-bound senior ought to be able to fill in that form. If you can’t fill in the FAFSA or do a 1040EZ, how are you going to write a ten-page paper?</p>

<p>who selects the student, only the college, or only ED, or at times both/either? </p>

<hr>

<p>ED selects students, and sometimes schools will select students. All schools are requires to verify at least 30% of those ED selects. Some will verify all those selected, though. A few schools are in a special program where they can pick the ones they will verify, rather than using what ED selects. Some schools will pick their own in addition to the ones ED selects. Yet others may choose to verify all FAFSA’s.</p>

<p>being in guardianship at the end should surely be grounds for being considered independent.</p>

<hr>

<p>It is.</p>

<p>Just got SAR back after filing FAFSA and it says EFC is $38,000. My Financial Award letter from my ED accepted college based on CSS profile calculates the Paremtal Contribution at $68,000. Actual college cost is $54,000.</p>

<p>Why the big difference between the two?</p>