<p>First of all, I'm going to CUNY Baruch this fall. Tuition is like $5000 a year.</p>
<p>I filled out the FAFSA late (priority deadline was March 15; I filled it out on March 20), and this is what the SAR said: "Based on your EFC of 00642, you may be eligible to receive a Federal Pell Grant of up to $4900 for the 2010-2011 school year."</p>
<p>As soon as the FAFSA was processed, I edited something (I put that I receive free school lunch, a criteria which I think I originally skipped over by mistake) right away, not knowing that I wouldn't be able to edit anything else.</p>
<p>So now I have to wait "3-5 days" for the correction to process before I can make another correction--that my father's income from work was 16K, not 40K. 40K was our total gross income, which I mistook as being the same as income from work.</p>
<p>How will this affect my aid? Is an EFC of 642 enough to pay for a cheap school like CUNY, even if I was late (and still not done making corrections)? Is CUNY lenient about this since it has so many (poor) students?</p>
<p>Also: How do I know if my family receives pension income? Where is it on form 1040?</p>
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<p>The income that you put on the FAFSA is your parents’ adjusted gross income. What was the $40K and what is the $16K? And what makes up the difference between those amounts.</p>
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<p>Is either parent retired? Pension income usually refers to income received when one retires from a job.</p>
<p>I believe you are eligible for the Pell grant even if you didn’t meet the priority deadline. That is federally funded aid, not CUNY institutional aid.</p>
<p>16K is the income from WORK only (salaries, tips, etc.), not the total income. I put 40k for both, but my father only makes 16K from work. My mom doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Yes, it is federal aid, but will it be enough to cover the typical CUNY tuition ($5k a year) granted:</p>
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<p>How will this change when the corrections process (in general terms for a student whose parents only make 16k a year from work) taking into account the lateness?</p>
<p>If you don’t understand how to answer these questions, it’s okay. I don’t really know what I’m asking. I just feel sick because I’m not going to a school I want to go to at all…and feel despondent about having to worry about money still…</p>
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<p>You say that $40,000 was your “total gross income”. If only $16K was from working, what was the other $24K from?</p>
<p>If your Pell Grant is $4900, and the tuition at CUNY is $5000…you have $100 to earn at your summer job. </p>
<p>I know a number of successful graduates of CUNY…good luck to you!!</p>
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<p>I don’t know…I’m only filling out the FAFSA as I go.</p>
<p>question 16b on form 1040 says that the taxable amount of pensions and annuities was 15,918…does that mean my parents received pension income? this makes no sense. There are also dozens of questions on the FAFSA that aren’t on paper, and since my parents don’t speak English, i don’t know how to ask them about it. What should I do? I’ve left the majority of these blank because I don’t understand the terms and a Google search doesn’t help me.</p>
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<p>I’m not a tax expert…and I hope someone else pipes in…but it sounds like that is pension income.</p>
<p>Why do I feel like I am the only one with this problem (not necessarily directed at you, thumper1, since you may not know)? If I put “Yes” to the pension income question, it asks what type of pension it is. A Google search shows NOTHING about how to figure this out. How can a teenager whose parents don’t know English fill this out? Incompetence ****es me off.</p>
<p>Do they really care about being accurate on the FAFSA? I feel like most people just put $0 to these…</p>
<p>I just submitted the corrections and my EFC shot up to 6507.</p>
<p>My family makes $16k a year from work…less than half the average median salary of a SINGLE PERSON…and we only have $3500 in savings…I’ve filled out EVERYTHING I could as accurate as I can.</p>
<p>I made some corrections…</p>
<p>My adjusted gross income stayed the same (~40k), but I corrected my parents’ income from work from 40k to 16k.</p>
<p>I put down my parents’ taxable pension income as 35k, which partly accounts for the 40k total.</p>
<p>Why did my EFC shoot up from under $1000 to $6507 when my family only makes $16k a year from work? We only have $3500 in savings…</p>
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<p>I’m sorry. What I meant was that the untaxable pension incomes accounts partly for the total gross income of 40k. Whatever the case, it makes no sense that my EFC isn’t 0 when my parents only make 16k a year…I put down that I receive free lunch as well…</p>
<p>I’m going to a CUNY this fall and my only motivation to go is that the tuition is low…and now I wont even have money for transfer applications…</p>
<p>what did you put as total wages from work…???</p>
<p>I just re-checked and it was 19k, not 16k, so total wages from work is 19k for the whole family…</p>
<p>The only reason I can see that accounts for the EFC increase is the untaxable pension funds ($15k)…I even put down that I receive free lunch and my EFC still skyrocketed…I also put that our savings are $3500, which is nothing. we are dirt poor</p>
<p>Your post is very confusing. What is the adjusted gross income from the tax return. That must be reported on FAFSA and would not include nontaxable income. And where is the nontaxable pension number coming from? It is pretty hard under US tax rules to have $38,000 in nontaxable pension income.</p>
<p>You are misunderstanding the reason for the income from work question. It is not used as “income” for calculating the EFC in FAFSA. FAFSA considers all income. The income from work question is used to determine certain allowances against total income (AGI and any other income including reportable untaxed income). The main allowance is for FICA. FICA is a “tax” on income earned from work (not on unearned income). It is around 7.2%. When you reported too high an amount as income from work the allowance for FICA would have been too high. When you corrected the income from work amount the allowance for FICA would have been reduced which would lead to a higher EFC. For instance if the AGI was 40,000 then reporting $40,000 as income from work would have meant an allowance for FICA of 2880 (7.2% of 40,000). This would reduce the income available in the EFC formula to 37120. When you corrected the income from work to 16,000 that would reduce the FICA allowance to 1152. So the income available in the EFC formula would now be 38848.</p>
<p>So yes decreasing the income from work figure will increase the EFC. However it certainly would not increase it by over 5000. What else did you change?</p>
<p>The adjusted gross income is 40K.
The income from work (“Wages, salaries, tips, etc.”) is 19K.</p>
<p>OK, the instructions said to subtract 16a from 16b on Form 1040:</p>
<p>[“Pensions and annuities” (51,836)] - [“Taxable amount” (15,918)] = 51836-15918 = 35918</p>
<p>Hence $35,918 in nontaxable pension income. My parents don’t know English very well. Perhaps they made a mistake?</p>
<p>I used the EFC Calculator on the College Board website and noticed that this figure (35,918) is indeed the cause of the EFC increase, so the work income is mostly irrelevant.</p>
<p>I realize that my first four posts are confusing and contradictory. Ignore those. Why is the nontaxable pension income so high? My parents don’t speak English so I don’t know how to ask them.</p>
<p>No it sounds like they did it correctly. If they had an AGI of $40,000 and also untaxed IRA distributions (that is what the 16a and 16b lines on the 1040 are from) then your available income for FAFSA is $75,918. Untaxed IRA distributions do have to be reported on FAFSA and are considered when calculating the EFC. $75k in income is not dirt poor. Most income (there are some exceptions) is considered as available income in the EFC formula, not just income from work.</p>
<p>The free lunch question only makes a difference if you meet certain income limits. With an AGI of under $50,000 then the free lunch question makes you eligible for the simplified needs test where assets are ignored. If the AGI were below $30,000 then it would help qualify you for the automatic 0 EFC. But as the AGI is $40,000 you are not eligible for the auto 0.</p>
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Those lines on the tax return are distributions from IRAs (retirement savings accounts). And they do have to be reported.</p>
<p>When you said pensions I was thinking you meant the nontaxable part of social security pensions. That is why I was confused as they would be nontaxable at that high level.</p>
<p>Is this the issue?</p>
<p>Does the OP think that his family’s income from work (which is low) is what determines his aid? It doesn’t. The income that his family also receives from their retirement distribution also is considered for aid.</p>
<p>The family actually has a rather good income once you add their “work income” to their retirement income…as Swimcat says…it’s about $76k.</p>
<p>Also…FAFSA doesn’t just consider the “after tax” amount, which it sounds like the OP thinks.</p>
<p>Crazy bandit…it sounds like you did something wrong…but I’m not sure what it might be. Give it some time. You posted your question at 10:30 last night when MANY of the knowledgable folks here are SLEEPING.</p>
<p>Your family makes $16K from WORK…and $24K from WHERE??? You still haven’t answered that question.</p>