I was asked by fasfa to do an income verification and they are having me fill out this form but I needed some sort of state identification and didn’t have any. I was able to get a real id but I’m just waiting for it to come in, they gave me a 30 day deadline to get the form in but I’m scared the id may not come in time even though I did get it a while back. Does anyone know what happens if I can’t get the form in within 30 days? The email they sent said it may affect my financial aid and I’m kinda stressing out.

Do we get our Pell grant or loans before school starts? I’ve looked at the specifications that we need in a laptop for my school and they are like 500-700$ and there’s no way I can afford that.

HI

I'm trying to understand the difference in fin aid people recieve when they drop from full time to only 9 credits.

Right now I am full time and get a check for about $1,400 in excess aid every semester.

Is it possible to drop a class and still have everything covered considering that rn everything is covered AND I get the extra money. Or is that unrealistic that they would cover all 9 credits? Is the drop in aid that dramatic of a difference?

I'll contact my school later (but their fin aid office haven't been straight forward in the past so I wanted to get others' opinions/exp)

Hey im filling out my css profile and I just wanted to know, if there is a line blank on my tax returns, should I reflect that by also leaving it blank on my css profile or should I put a 0? And if there is a 0 on my tax returns, should I also reflect that by putting a 0 or leaving it blank? Thank you, if you need clarification to the question let me know because I feel like it sounds confusing!

What are my options right now and who’s accountable for correcting the posting of bills? I just can’t pay it right now, for whatever they missed from my own pocket.

Serious and productive responses only.

Hi, I’m going into my 2nd year at college and I’m lucky enough to have a financial aid package that covers tuition and gives me a refund that would pay for most living expenses. I’m considering moving back home with my parents this year and driving to school. The problem is I’ve called it seems like this would remove all of my additional aid beyond covering tuition. They are assuming the would have no living expenses because it would be payed for by my parents. My parents weren’t expecting me to move back and I think we both agree it’s fair I should pay some rent, and pay for my own food and gas etc. is it possible to have this work? I will talk directly to my school about it but I’m just wondering if this is ever done. I don’t how it’s any different paying rent to my parents vs an apartment. Not sure if the school will allow this or if they do if I will get the full amount or just partial. Thanks

I have a small-ish amount in my two kids 529 account. I have much more money in my personal investments. Kid 1 starts college this fall, kid 2 starts college next fall. Is there any tax advantage to plowing all the personal investments through their kids’ 529 accounts to pay for their college over the next four years?

I know there will be only small tax free gains from appreciation (at best, maybe loss in the current stock market) in the short term, but I heard that there might be some benefits at the state (California) income tax level by running everything through the 529.

Any advice or references would be appreciated.

I go to a school in New York (where I live and pay taxes) because it was the cheaper option. I have found myself really unhappy here and wanting to go to school in another state. All of my siblings and I have never qualified for financial aid because our parents “make too much” even though they were putting multiple kids through college at the same time without loans. I always thought this made no sense because they were spending more than 3/4 of the money than they were getting. If I go to a more expensive school out of state .. will I qualify for financial aid then? Basically does it work depending on how expensive the college is or just how much money your parents make?

For anyone who received year-round pell, how did that work for you? Here’s my situation, I have already exceeded my pell grant amount for the 2024/2025 because I used up 100% of it ($7,395.00). However, I am enrolled for 12 units in the summer which is full time and I have met SAP standards for fall and spring. Would I be eligible for year-round pell and get financial aid for the summer term?

how does cal grant works? I know there's cal grant A, B and C. Are those all good for four years?

I've been at school for 2 years and in planning to take a year gap, do i have to be at school for straight 4 years to use it? or what

okay my parents make too much money for me to get anything good out of financial aid. they do not provide for me in literally any way (bills, tuition, ect.) and i live on my own. fasfa still considers me a dependent even though i file my own taxes bc im 21. i do not want to use any more private loans than i need to, and at this point im considering just... dropping out?? i'm in my third/fourth year of college

i have spoken to my financial aid office about this, and they told me that there wasnt anything they could do unless i had documentation that my parents have abandoned or abused me, which i do not.

would it... HYPOTHETICALLY... help me out if i got married? if the person i marry(and myself) make less than my parents do, wouldnt we recieve more financial aid because of lower income? realistically?

Help needed ‼️‼️ I am wanting to attend a new college, but I owe an old college money and they sent my debt into collections. I have received my official transcript and sent it to the school and filled out all the forms and I have an advising meeting scheduled. I'm just wanting to make sure they will let me schedule classes. So has anyone gotten into a new college and taking classes, even though they had money owed to a previous college in collections? I am making payments to the collection agency.

So I am currently at my third university, and I have just filled out my 2025-2026 FAFSA. A few days after this submission, I received a notification from my institution that says I have to fill out an unusual enrollment history (UEH) form. I am not sure what this is or what to do about it. I transferred from my first institution due to it being too small, and pricey as it was a private college, and had completed credits there. I left my second institution (another private university) due to price, and most importantly my overall safety, while in the middle of a semester, and ended up withdrawing from the university and not going back. Now I live at home and attend a public 4 year institution that I love and plan on finishing here. I’ve read that because I withdrew from my second institution and did not complete any credits, that may be a problem with this UEH, but feel my circumstance may be excusable. I am also navigating college on my own, and not sure what I should do, or who to talk to or what to even ask. What should I do?

Hi guys, i’m a little worried because my CADAA still says incomplete, I submitted my application for CADAA on December 2024 and I received a mail that my application was received but i needed a gpa so i asked my highschool to sent my gpa and they did on March 12, It would be my first time in college i graduated in class 2023 so i haven’t been to school for a long time and i dont know how this works, any comment would help, thanks guys 🙏.

Hey y'all, I've been checking my financial aid account because I supposedly got a big sum of scholarships. On my account, there is -$12,000 credit for a Grad PLUS loan. I do get Grad PLUS loans, but I thought that I had covered everything (fees, tuition, etc) with my loans already. Has anybody ever had this experience? I'm not even sure what a negative credit for loans means!

I have a couple questions , I take one class a month online , 3 credits each.. will I get a refund or a partial refund ? Somebody please explain this to me.

Hi, sorry if this post isn't formatted correctly, I'm new to reddit. I asked this question on r/Advice but got nothing so I decided to post here as well.

I (18f) applied to colleges a few months back and I am now in the process of filling out my financial aid forms. I completed my portion and sent my parents the email form to fill out their financial information to see if I'm eligible. I sent them this form in the middle of February and assumed they had completed it as we had no further conversation about it other than them saying it was done.

I received an email from the college I planned on attending that stated I was missing some application materials. It was my FAFSA forms. I confronted my parents immediately about it. I was in the dark about the fact they hadn't filed their taxes, which is needed for this from. They basically said I was on my own and there was nothing they could do. I am unable to file my FAFSA as an independent as I don't meet the requirements to do so.

They dropped this on me so late that most of the grants and scholarships for my attended college have closed their applications. Is there anything I can do, or is there any scholarship anyone might know about? I want to avoid having any loans if possible, however if it does come down to it does anyone know a subreddit where I could ask about student loans with the lowest interest rates?

Thank you for any response.

Does my employer automatically have permission to use a work study award that I accept as part of my financial aid package, or do I still need to provide separate approval for each job? For context I work at a gym on campus and also do research as a second job on campus.

When I accepted work study I planed to use it for my research job. But I recently learned that my current employer on campus has been paying me with my Work-Study money without ever notifying me or requesting my permission(I had told them in the past that I didn't want them using my work study money and I wasn't hired with work-study as a requirement). Because of this I can't work at my other job on campus.

Is that allowed? Shouldn't they have first obtained my permission? Any help with this would be appreciated

My scholarships are at risk of being cancelled because my college says my TAP is "incomplete." When I logged into HESC, the only message for why my TAP is not being processed is because "student paid at diff college in the fall-- please contact HESC to resplve this error." This doesn't make any sense because I paid for the right college last semester (obviously??) and I made sure that I entered my college's correct info on my TAP application when I filled it out.

HESC customer service is a nightmare on a good day, but at the time I'm writing this, they have absolutely NO slots open for appointments at all, and that is the only way to contact a representative. Even if a slot were to open in the next 2 months (which isn't even showing on their website), it would be too late by then b/c my school would have cancelled my awards. I contacted my financial aid office and bursar but they are telling me this is only an error that HESC can resolve. I don't know what the fuck to do. Why would they think I paid for a different college in the first place, and how do I get them to see that it's not true?

Does anybody know when the TAP awards for NYS are disbursed for the current semester?

I've been applying for 2024-25 fafsa since last year. I was never able to do it due to the bug that wouldn't allow me to complete the form online. So I mailed it in, and my school rejected it requesting tax info from my spouse who doesn't work in the U.S. She's a foreigner with no ssn. I mailed the corrections, and the mail was rejected telling me to make the corrections online, but the bug still exists. I get to the end where I need to send an invitation to my wife for tax info and the invitation can't get sent due to the error code.

Yes, I've tried on different browsers and erased cache/cookies.
Yes I've deleted and restarted the fafsa form.
Yes I've created an account for my wife and verified that all info on the spouses profile matched the info on the form exactly as is.

I'm at my breaking point. Idk what to do. Any of the representatives I speak to does not have a legitimate solution and my last line of mailing the info to them will no longer be accepted.

Can anyone help me?

It's crazy how we're almost at the end and i still haven't gotten my refund. I talked to financial aid about it and they're waiting on the state

I don't know why but my sister told me to put my dad's email into the spot where the non custodial parent can fill out their information. She said that the universities would still waive it if he sent it in since one of the schools she applied to allowed it. I should've done my own research. I haven't had contact with my dad since I was 13 and able to choose which house I wanted to stay in. I don't know much about his income now, but I'm guessing that he still makes 10x more money than my mom from what I remember when I was 13. He filled it out and now won't send in the IDOC documents. I haven't sent any CSS profiles in to universities since I know I won't be able to afford it. My mom just lost her job too. The collegeboard is so infuriating since it won't let me detach his information from my account. I know I'm stupid for not doing more research, but I think it's dumb that once a CSS profile is submitted it cannot be retracted in any way. I think I'm screwed for any college that I got into that requires the CSS profile. I just needed to rant a bit.

My abusive dad kicked me out in July after I turned 18. My mom passed away when I was a kid. I was able to qualify as an independent with fafsa financial aid after providing proof of abuse with police reports and being homeless staying at the shelter.

I recently found out my dad claimed me as a dependent on his tax returns. I’m afraid this will impact my independent status with fafsa. What if he continues to claim me every year? I will have to drop out of school with no aid. 😭😭😭 Please advise.

I am a full-time student at a community college, currently in my freshman year. I received a good amount of refunds from my Pell Grant. I'm thinking of using it to buy an art mentorship program during the summer. I am not an art student, but I want to improve. Will this count as an educational purpose, or is it better not to do it? What happens if I do spend it? I'm also planning on saving the rest for my uni transfer.