<p>Working on the Fafsa, I wondered whether and where social security benefits go, so I googled, and found a seemingly knowledgeable source (to remain nameless). It said many children and parents forget to enter social security benefits, and referenced a question 93 as the spot where they are entered (for parents). They seemed quite certain, and quoted by name some college financial aid officers. I trust but verify, so I did an online chat with a fafsa rep, and she said, "Social Security is actually not included on the FAFSA." I asked about question 93 and got: "Question 93 on the FAFSA only asks for the number of people in the students household."</p>
<p>I did a bit more research, and realized that social security benefits are indirectly entered as part of gross income, but not directly entered on any line. </p>
<p>So be careful out there people, and don't even accept my advice without question. I could be wrong too.</p>
<p>The way I have interpreted it has been that UNTAXED Social Security income is not included. You are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT that ANY info has to be researched and double checked. This goes for any topic on an internet board.</p>
<p>There have been some answers given by the FAFSA center and by financial aid directors at colleges (who are actually considered agents for the federal funds) that were out right wrong, or possibly incorrectly reported by posters on this board. Or perhaps there is a disagreement on how things are done. In such cases, I would go with the most favorable way to go for the family/student and let the financial aid officers themselves make the corrections on the FAFSA if they so desire. That’s whose call it ultimately comes down to being.</p>
<p>and I have seen this website mentioned on various tv networks. </p>
<p>I’ve seen this guy on tv, I’m sure about it</p>
<p>Mark Kantrowitz, Publisher</p>
<p>FinAid was created by Mark Kantrowitz, a noted financial aid and college planning author. Mark is also Publisher of FastWeb, the largest and most popular free scholarship matching service. Previously, he was a Research Scientist at Just Research, the US software laboratory for Justsystem Corporation of Japan. Mark has earned the praise of numerous college administrators, journalists and students and families for his dedicated work on the FinAid site; also, not surprisingly, he managed to fund his own schooling without spending a single cent of his parents’ money.</p>
<p>OP is correct. I 've given wrong info–I’m just a a parent, no affiliation to anything official and absolutely nothing I say is sacrosanct. But even those here who are in the system have given information that has supposedly been contradicted by direct sources, or so the poster have said. You really can’t go by anything than your own direct experience. Any poster could be giving incorrect or incomplete info or even lying, so everything is suspect.</p>
<p>In the end, it all comes down to what a given school says. In many areas that are not specifically addressed by law, and even some of those, a school can have its own rules and that is what dictates the reality. Doesn’t help you a bit if your college does things in a way that isn’t according to standard procedure. Doesn’t help you if your parents won’t play ball either. The reality is what counts. But you can get a lot of information here to cross check an dget a good idea of how the process usually works. Some pretty heavy hitter and gurus on board here with some excellent advice and who know the rules and how they usually work.</p>
<p>“If you or your parents receive Social Security income, that needs to be listed on the FAFSA as well. Sometimes it’s forgotten, says Anastasio [identified as Wagner College finaid expert]; other times, parents claim they don’t know where to include it. (It’s Question 93 for them and Question 45 for you.) And, it’s not only the facts that cause frustration, says Gilkeson. Believe it or not, students and parents often forget to include such simple information as their signature, and even fill in an incorrect Social Security number.”</p>
<p>As I stated: the FAFSA online chat rep said question 93 is for number in household and social security income is not directly entered now, or ever before.</p>
<p>I totally agree! I went round and round researching what number to put into the ‘income earned from work’ , #86 (I think!) on the FAFSA. A few experts said that you put your income plus whatever you contributed to a 401k, and characterized FAFSAs done any other way as ‘wrong’. I called FAFSA help, and they said read the directions, it’s really clear, put in the numbers from the line of your return or W-2 as prompted.</p>
<p>I took out the calculator and realized that even if the ‘experts’ were right, it would only make a difference of a couple of hundred dollars a year. A small drop in this huge bucket. Not worth having the FAFSA rejected, audited, whatever they might do to you.</p>
<p>So I chose to err on the side of caution, rather than trying to take a small advantage. </p>
<p>To the larger point, you never know if someone’s having a bad day, hit their head and are suffering from amnesia, or has just run into some bad sources. You really can’t trust even seemingly trustworthy sources. I regularly check and cross-check info on websites and regularly find pages out of date. Since pages are generally not dated, you really don’t know which page is the most current. </p>
<p>More information doesn’t always equal better information. OK. Done with my rant for today. Thanks for listening. Don’t rely on me, either, I’m just as fallible as everyone else.</p>
<p>The first time I started doing finaid forms a couple of years ago, I had some questions regarding forms for a particular top LAC. I called the finaid office and the head honcho happened to pick up the phone. He was able to answer my question, but we got to chatting, and he said he volunteers at the local high school to help students prepare finaid forms. “Sometimes I look at a form, read the instructions, and can do nothing more than scratch my head.”</p>
<p>There are a number of mystery shopper evaluations of tax preparers that have have found wide ranging errors, plus outright fraud. For example: [Tax</a> preparation: are you being cheated?](<a href=“Consumer Reports Magazine 2022”>Consumer Reports Magazine 2022)</p>
<p>I couldn’t find the link, but I recall reading a study where they asked a variety of tax preparers–including mom and pops, H&R Block-types, CPAs, and IRS agents–to fill out the same return. No two were the same, although the more training, the better. The IRS people did the best, which is where I call when I’m looking for answers to tax questions (assuming I can get through).</p>
<p>There’s no date on that article. So it may be several years old.</p>
<p>The FAFSA form is not written in stone, it changes from year to year. It is highly probable that in the year that the article was written, the questions in question referred to income and not the number of people or whatever.</p>
<p>Which points out another danger of trusting what you read on the internet - without knowing the date it was written, it is hard to judge whether the info is correct with respect to current rules and laws, which change all the time.</p>
<p>LizzieT, income from work is a topic about which even financial aid professionals disagree. The guidance is not crystal clear. As a result, each school comes up with its policy based on its interpretations, and that is what staff at that school uses. Most stick to the fact that certain lines on the tax return in referenced in the FAFSA instructions, so those are used in the policy.</p>
<p>Even experts are not always right. I have gotten better at my job because of the questions asked on this forum. I research like crazy, talk to my peers, and even learn from CC debates on topics. I sometimes tell people their aid officer is wrong - and often they are - but sometimes they are right. I am pretty confident in my abilities, but I am not perfect.</p>
<p>The problem is, by filling out the form incorrectly, your FAFSA will not match your return when you do the IRS link thing.</p>
<p>Line 83 is line 37 from the 1040, line 21 from 1040A, or line 4 from 1040EZ.</p>
<p>Line 86 is your income from box 1 of your W2 plus your share of business and farm income from lines 12 and 18, and some K-1 stuff if it applies.</p>
<p>Line 92a is where your 401k contributions get added back in.</p>
<p>kelsmom & notrichenough - I wound up contacting a fin aid officer with 25 years experience who heads the department of a local private college. Our HS GC swears by this woman. She confirmed what FAFSA help told me. That’s when I stopped my research.</p>
<p>I must’ve done ok, because I was able to use the data retrieval tool successfully. Right?!</p>
<p>Many years ago I worked in a financial aid office. What I learned is that it’s always a good idea to ask questions.</p>
<p>^ According to the EC Formula guide, the numbers used in questions 86 and 87 are only used if you don’t file a tax return. If you do file a tax return, it uses question 83.</p>
<p>So it probably doesn’t matter what you put in for those questions.</p>
<p>The FAFSA rep told me the form has never asked for a direct entry of social security benefits/income–although, I’ll allow, she could have been wrong too.</p>
<p>I think “never” is about 3 or 4 years ago, actually.</p>
<p>And before that, payments from prepaid tuition plans were considered a resource. Thank heavens someone realized they are savings, like any other savings … if you count them the way you count a scholarship, it’s just plain wrong. Glad that changed.</p>