Looking for advice on behalf of a friend who returned to school after a 2 year break this summer.
Student applied for financial aid for 2014-15 in April 2015 when deciding to return to school. Went back to the university in May 2015 to sort classes/financial aid and fill out paperwork for FA, then received notification that they would be eligible to receive financial aid on June 10. They were told to wait til the end of the week (June 12) to see Financial Aid award appear - it didn’t. Called on June 22 and they told him it should show up by June 19. It was also confirmed through email.
Called this morning and they just said the student was selected for verification. This is an independent student now (24 years old), but not independent for 2014-15, so they need parents tax info. They are unsure of how to get since parents are in another country for the summer and they don’t communicate regularly. Student was depending on this aid to complete the first summer semester (which ends on Friday) and enroll for the second one. Is there another way to obtain these tax documents without the parents being around?
(Also, a side question coming from someone new to working in higher ed - how do things like this happen? Student sent me the email communication where he asked if anything else was needed and their response said he was all set.)
@kgos16 yeah, they did. I’m just wondering if there’s a way to get the appropriate paperwork from 2013 without the parents being present (using their SS numbers or something like that). I know when I was in undergrad I was able to turn in verification/tax stuff without having to ask my parents for things, but I can’t remember what exactly I did, and there wasn’t a big gap of time like in this situation.
The parents should be able to do the data retrieval for the verification by computer (although it was supposed to be easy, I’ve had nothing but trouble with mine) or they can order a tax transcript and it will be sent to their home address but that took about a week. If they did the DRT when they filed the FAFSA, that might be all the verification form requires
First…why would you need info from 2013? This year’s fafsa uses the tax year info from 2014.
Second…sure, you can lie and say you are the parent if you have their ID information. But I’m not a big fan of falsifying information.
Third…if the student filed as independent, the parent info would not have been on the student’s fafsa, and therefore, the parent would not have linked to the IRS DRT at all.
And lastly, why does this student need to start college in the summer term? Maybe working for the summer and starting in the fall term would work better.
From what OP describes, @Madison85 you are correct. Some schools treat summer as a “trailer” semester, which piggybacks on the 2014-2015 school year - so student has to collect 2013 tax information even though they would be independent for aid purposes in 2015-2016. OP the transcript can be ordered at IRS.gov or the student can make corrections on the 2014-2015 FAFSA to link the IRS figures over electronically using the Data Retrieval tool.
(Also, a side question coming from someone new to working in higher ed - how do things like this happen? Student sent me the email communication where he asked if anything else was needed and their response said he was all set.)
Lots of possible reasons, but none of us can know for sure. Off the top of my head, I would bet the worker initially thought the student was asking something else, or was talking about 15-16, or was an enrollment center worker who is trained to look at the surface and not the details … etc. The bigger the school, the more things can get murky (more people, more systems, less time … ). The student has to complete verification in order to get summer aid, so it doesn’t do much good to dwell on the why’s. The important thing is to submit what is needed.
The parents can do the IRS Data Retrieval to transfer their 2013 tax info. They will have to set up an FSA ID first, though. To minimize issues, make sure to do that right … do not use the same email address as the student’s email address, write down the password, write down the answers to the challenge questions (and put them somewhere safe where you’ll remember where they are).
@4kidsdad The academic adviser/dean at the university set up the enrollment plan with some classes in the summer to help prepare the student to be full time again in the fall and take requirements that were put into place after he left. It’s one of those conditional plans that he has to fulfill in order to not have any probation/restrictions once the fall semester starts.
@thumper1 The student was not independent for 14-15 (born in 1991), and DID include parent info on the FAFSA. I’m not sure how the adviser/dean/student came to the decision to enroll in the summer, but it seems he is on a track to reacquaint himself with his major and take intro/freshmen courses that were previously weren’t required that he has to take now.
@kgos16@kelsmom Thank you both! The IRS retrevial tool is what I was thinking of but couldn’t remember. I’m assuming that since the parents aren’t around, it would be information falsification if the student got his parents’ SSN to use the data retrevial (as suggested by thumper1)? Is the only option really to wait for them to come back home?