Question Regarding FAFSA and ROTC Stipend

[goaliedad]

Where/How are you going to report it on the FAFSA such that they know it should be excluded? I don't believe there is any way you can delineate that it is an ROTC stipend. If you put in under untaxed income it will be included.

This document is written to financial aid administrators and basically gives them the OK to remove the stipends if reported and to program their systems to exclude the ROTC scholarship awards when awarding aid.

The question they ask to the student in the "untaxed income" are is:

X Housing, food, and other living allowances paid to military, clergy, and others

Housing, food, and other living allowances paid to members of the military, clergy, and others (including cash payments and cash value of benefits). Do not include the value of on-base military housing or the value of a basic military allowance for housing

$XXXX.00

I hope they have figured out that this one category of untaxed income is not used to calculate EFC. As to the other categories of untaxed income, I guess those should be assessed as part of the EFC calculation.

 

[goaliedad]

Very valid points goaliedad,

Please take a look at this also Link It goes into more detail, and may help you with your phone call.

My working theory is this, I will not report ROTC/Stipend on FAFSA
The school will know about the scholarship-they get the check.
So they will also know about stipends, if they have an issue - I am sure I will hear about it.
If they ask, I can argue based on the guidance memo and the info from the FinAid site if needed.

I will have that link up when I call. Thanks.

 

[goaliedad]

I will have that link up when I call. Thanks.

OK, The report is in. And it is probably going to confuse you as well.

If the stipend is used for paying housing, it is not to be reported. However, if you receive an amount greater than what the student pays for housing, that amount above the amount paid for housing needs to be reported.

Fortunately for us, the stipend is less than the amount Goaliegirl paid for housing, so it looks like we do not check the box and fill in an amount. I think this to be the case for most ROTC scholarship recipients.

The folks who may have an issue (and will probably want to call the FAFSA hotline to confirm) will be those who live at home (not paying R&B ostensibly) and those who receive R&B scholarships.

The latter of those two groups probably aren't filing FAFSA (unless it is a condition of receiving the R&B scholarship) and in any case that isn't a federal benefit and they won't likely be getting any other FAFSA based scholarships anyway given their full-ride status.

The gentleman I talked to indicated that the question used to be different before the change in the law a couple years ago. I think we agreed that it isn't the best way to ask for this information, but their hands are tied, I guess.

Hope this makes things clearer.

 

[paradoxer]

Thanks for checking this out

OK, The report is in. And it is probably going to confuse you as well.

If the stipend is used for paying housing, it is not to be reported. However, if you receive an amount greater than what the student pays for housing, that amount above the amount paid for housing needs to be reported.

Fortunately for us, the stipend is less than the amount Goaliegirl paid for housing, so it looks like we do not check the box and fill in an amount. I think this to be the case for most ROTC scholarship recipients.

The folks who may have an issue (and will probably want to call the FAFSA hotline to confirm) will be those who live at home (not paying R&B ostensibly) and those who receive R&B scholarships.

The latter of those two groups probably aren't filing FAFSA (unless it is a condition of receiving the R&B scholarship) and in any case that isn't a federal benefit and they won't likely be getting any other FAFSA based scholarships anyway given their full-ride status.

The gentleman I talked to indicated that the question used to be different before the change in the law a couple years ago. I think we agreed that it isn't the best way to ask for this information, but their hands are tied, I guess.

Hope this makes things clearer.

Don't you love all the new things you learn when your child goes off to school!

 

[grtkidmom]

goaliedad, thank you for following up with fafsa and reporting back to your SAF ROTC friends. I am now ready to hit the fafsa submit button.

 

[goaliedad]

Don't you love all the new things you learn when your child goes off to school!

Yup!

What I don't understand is how they expect a HS graduate to understand the rule interpretations that aren't entirely clear to the college educated parents.

It seems you need a Master's degree to understand the FA forms necessary to finance your BS.