Please help me fill out this financial aid form!!!?

Question

My daughter applied for and was accepted to Arizona State University. We live in Colorado (ouch!) We applied for FASFA, but were denied. She did get a $1500 grant from ASU, and they have offered her a $3500 loan....but her tuition is over $30,000. I contacted the Financial Aid office today and since I am no longer employed, they said I need to fill out a "parent review" form explaining the changes in our circumstances.

Ok, printed out the form, but there are a few areas that I'm not sure what to put:

1. Additional child tax credit for 2008 tax year ~ how do I figure that?

2. Anticipated 2008 Education credits ~ again, how do I know what that will be?

3. Anticipated grant and scholarship aid to be reported to the IRS in your adjusted gross income ~ is this the $1500 grant she got?

I'm so lost on this. The sad thing is that if this doesn't help us, the advise they gave me was to go take out some personal loans. That's it. No other advise from the Financial Aid Officer.

Answer 1

wow, doesn't even cover tution! My student loans cover all of that AND living expenses for me and my kids while I go to university.

I hate forms too... let's see... CTC. That would be from the government. What did you get for Child Tax Credit this year? You can phone the CTC office and ask them what the total was that year. All the government numbers are online. Or you can call where you had your income tax done and ask them what you claimed for CTC.

Each course is usually 3 credits. So for 2008, how many courses do you anticipate her taking? If she plans on taking 4 courses a semester, than that is 12 credits per semester (4 months). Is she taking the summer off...?

Grand and scholarship is once again anticipated, so this does not have to be accurate. I would put all scholarships and grants to date, so yes the 1500.

I hate forms too! good luck:)

Answer 2

haha my mom works in ASU financhial

Answer 3

First thing

1. the Additional Tax Credit  for 2008 is the tax credit you will get for a child that will be 17 through 2008. If she turns 18 in 2008 you cannot take this credit so the amount will be zero.

2. This is the Credits you intend to take for education. The scholarships she is receiving  are taxable. The credits you are taking for out of pocket expenses are credits.

3.This is all the grants she gets that are not federal grants.



For more infor visit the IRS online.

Answer 4

Hi, maybe I can help:

What the school is wanting is a good guess of what you anticipate your (and hubby if you are married) 08 income to be.  Prob the easiest way to do this is to get a blank 07 income tax return here http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf...

and fill it out using a combination of last years info and this years info... (Pretending this is what your fam made last year).  So, if you lost your job (and don't anticipate starting a new one for the rest of the year) and hubby still works, you could enter (On line 7) your income from Jan-May of 08 and what hubby's income will be for the whole year.  You would then proceed down the questions entering in all the info about other income you had for this year (again, pretending like the year was over).  Are you getting unemployment benefits?  Be sure to report them on the tax form.  

You can look at his 07 W2 forms for an estimate of how much tax they withheld.  And look at the copy of your last paycheck stub for you.

2. Work through the formula to see if you would qualify for the % of the cost of her education for the "Education credit" they talk about.

3.  This amount would be ZERO.  You only report "Grant and scholarship aid" if it would be included in your adjusted gross income. and that 1,500 WOULD NOT - not with a school cost of 30K a year.  Just so you know.

Answer 5

I worked in the financial aid office in southern Illinois. The forms have changed somewhat since then, but I saw a copy just the other day. Without having more info to work on, or a copy of the form in front of me, I would suggest taking the paperwork you have to a local school financial aid office near you and having them help explain it to you. They would be happy to do so, and they would have the code for the school your daughter is planing on attending. I don't know what your income (as a family) was for 2006, or 2007, but if your daughter is going to start school this fall, the figures they will use to determine her need and grant money availiability will be based on your 2006 income. If she starts this summer, they will use 2007 figures. The additional child tax credit concerns other children you have aside from the one trying to register. Please go see someone and get some help. Dpo not try and do this on your own. It's not worth the aggravation and you don't need the grey hair. But please tell your daughter that as soon as she gets settled, to go and get a Arizona state driver's license. After a year, she wqill qualify for in-state tuition, saving everybody a bunch of money