FAFSA ® & Application Processing Update

Cameron Washington Maria Marella

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Background

The purpose of this presentation is to share with FSA staff about the enhancements that were implemented in January 2014 and April 2014 for FAFSA on the Web. Additionally, and to share updates for future plans.

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Start Up Enhancements

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IRS Display FlagsIssue:Some students and parents are not provided with the option to use the IRS DRT, and FAAs don’t know why. This makes it difficult to determine what documentation to ask for when the student is selected for verification.

Solution:New IRS Display Flags were added to the ISIR, as well as in FAA Access. These alpha-character flags identify the specific reason why a student or parent was not eligible to use the IRS DRT.

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IRS Display Flags - Student• Blank = IRS DRT not available• A = Dependent student skipped the income and asset questions – IRS DRT was not

displayed• B = IRS DRT was displayed to student• C = Tax return status not equal to “Already completed” – IRS DRT was not displayed • D = Marital status date greater than or equal to January 2014 – IRS DRT was not

displayed• E = First three digits of SSN are 666 – IRS DRT was not displayed• H = Student amended his/her tax return – IRS DRT was not displayed• J = Student filed a Puerto Rican or Foreign tax return – IRS DRT was not displayed• K = Student is married and tax return filing status is Married Filed Separate Return

– IRS DRT was not displayed• L = Student is married and tax return filing status is Head of Household – IRS DRT

was not displayed• M = Conflict between the student’s marital status and tax return filing status – IRS

DRT was not displayed

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IRS Display Flags - Parent• Blank = IRS DRT not available• A (if student is dependent) = Dependent student has special circumstances – IRS DRT was not displayed• A (if student is independent) = Independent student skipped the parent questions – IRS DRT was not

displayed• B = IRS DRT was displayed to parent• C = Tax return status not equal to “Already completed” – IRS DRT was not displayed• D = Marital status date greater than or equal to January 2014 – IRS DRT was not displayed • E = First three digits of SSN are 666 – IRS DRT was not displayed • F = Non-married parent or both married parents entered all zeroes in SSN – IRS DRT was not displayed• G = Neither married parent entered a valid SSN – IRS DRT was not displayed • H = Parent amended his/her tax return – IRS DRT was not displayed • J = Parent filed a Puerto Rican or Foreign tax return – IRS DRT was not displayed• K = Parents are married and tax return filing status is Married Filed Separate Return – IRS DRT was not

displayed• L = Parents are married and tax return filing status is Head of Household – IRS DRT was not displayed• M = Conflict between the parents’ marital status and tax return filing status – IRS DRT was not displayed• N = Parents’ marital status is “Unmarried and both parents living together” – IRS DRT was not displayed

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Other Enhancements• Increased field lengths of all income and asset fields and calculated EFC

values to allow for more characters.

• Introduced a process for Direct Loans that confirms if the 150% subsidy limit applies to the borrower.

• FAA Access updated to add Identity Verification Results functionality to allow FAAs to enter results individually or by file upload.

• Provided a Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)-compliant process to allow students younger than 13 to apply for Title IV Aid.

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Tax Filing StatusIssue:We are unable to identify instances where the student’s or parents’ marital status conflicts with the tax filing status, resulting in the possibility that either too much income or not enough income is being reported on the FAFSA.

Solution:Students and parents started reporting their tax filing status on the FAFSA for 2014-2015. The system compares the tax filing status with the marital status to determine where potential discrepancies exist, and messages accordingly.

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Tax Filing Status (paper)

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Messaging for CorrectionsIssue:Some students and parents return to FAFSA on the Web to use the IRS DRT, add a school code, or make other corrections, but don’t submit those corrections.

Solution:We modified the messaging that displays when a user returns to FAFSA on the Web after transferring data from the IRS. Additionally, we send an e-mail to students with a saved correction after seven days of inactivity, encouraging them to return to FAFSA on the Web and submit the corrections.

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New Parent Marital StatusIssue:Information about both legal parents is currently included on a dependent student’s FAFSA only if the parents are married to each other, creating an inequity.

Solution:A new parent marital status option of “Unmarried, but both parents living together” allows for the collection of data from both legal parents when the parents are not married to each other. Mother and Father labels changed to Parent 1 and Parent 2. Help text was significantly enhanced to provide guidance for parents who file separate tax returns.

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Change to Definition of “Married”Issue:The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor changed the federal definition of marriage.

Solution:Text that defines marriage was updated. Mother and Father labels changed to Parent 1 and Parent 2.

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Parent Updates (paper)

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Parent Updates (paper)

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Parent Updates (paper)

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Student Updates (paper)

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Parent Updates

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Conflicting Asset InformationIssue:If a student or parent answers “yes” to the asset threshold question but then reports assets that total less than the APA, it appears on the ISIR as conflicting information for the FAA to resolve.

Solution:We added an edit to FAFSA on the Web that prevents this scenario from occurring.

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Conflicting Asset Information

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April Enhancements

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Improve instructions for Question 45j Issue:•We needed to clarify the instructions to FAFSA question “Money Received or Paid on Student’s behalf” to improve the accuracy of information being collected.

Solution:•The phrase “Include money that you received from a parent whose financial information is not reported on this form and that is not part of a legal child support agreement.” will be added to the following Help Topics:•“Money Received or Paid on Student’s Behalf” (moneyReceived.htm)•“What other money has been paid on your behalf?” (totalMoneyReceived.htm)

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Parent API MessageIssue:

We wanted to clarify the text that currently displays when a user clicks the link on the "Confirmation" page that allows for the transferring of parent data into another FAFSA.

Solution: The revised text advises applicants to verify they will be using the correct parental information before transferring the data to their sibling’s application.

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GED Question UpdateIssue:A number of states have started to create their own GED equivalent test.

Solution:Updated the FAFSA to allow for those individuals who take a state equivalent test to have a way to correctly mark their status and understand how they should answer the questions.

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GED Question

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GED Update on List of Changes

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SCOTUS DOMA RulingIssue:The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor changed the federal definition of marriage.

Solution:Help text that defines marriage has been updated. Mother and Father labels have changed to Parent 1 and Parent 2.

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Parent 1 & Parent 2 Labels

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Looking Forward

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Data - Application

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•The number of application processed during January 1st- March 31st has decreased by .31% from the prior year.

Data – Web completion times

• As of March 30th, the average amount of time it takes to complete the 14-15 FAFSA on the Web is 25 mins and 20 seconds.*

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• ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index):– The FAFSA average customer satisfaction score has been in the mid to

high 80s for the past 5 cycles.

• Peak:– The highest number of applications were submitted on Friday, February

28th, when 273,191 applications were submitted using FAFSA on the Web

– Our highest number of concurrent sessions occurred on Thursday, February 27th at 9:07pm, when we had 33,998 active sessions.

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Data - Where are we at?

Data -New Marital Status

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Dependents-Parents’ Marital Status Code

Marital Status January 1st- March 28th

Percentages

1 Married/Remarried 3,000,967 61.74%

2 Never Married 526,122 10.82%

3 Divorced/Separated 1,122,239 23.09%

4 Widowed 129,320 2.66%

5 Unmarried and Both Parents Living Together

27,615 .57%

Blank 54,334 1.12%

Total 4,860,597 100.00%

Data - MyStudentData Downloads

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January 1st- March 31st

Visits to MyStudentData Web

page MyStudentData

download counts

13-14 application cycle

22,834 8,398

14-15 application cycle

69,965 25,614

Freely Associated StatesIssue:FSA would like to provide guidance to students who are from the Freely Associated States to use the same SSN assigned to them each year when they complete the FAFSA.

Solution:FSA is working on multiple solutions for 15-16 start up that will encourage their students to use their assigned SSN.

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Foster Care YouthIssue:Congress has issued a bill asking for the FAFSA to identify individuals who are in Foster Care.

Solution:FSA will be modifying the FAFSA to message to Foster Care Youth about potential resources available to them.

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Issue:While there has always been some level of confusion regarding who is considered a parent on the FAFSA, the new “Unmarried and both parents living together” marital status and the change to the definition of marriage have increased confusion.

Solution:FSA is working to create an infographic to assist dependent applicants in the determination of whose information to report on the FAFSA.

New Marital Status

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Issue:There is a desire in the community to improve the clarity and completeness of the help and authentication pages related to the IRS DRT.

Solution:Update the existing IRS help topics, create new IRS help topics, and review authentication guidance on IRS pages.

IRS DRT Clarification

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Issue:There is a desire to increase usage of the IRS DRT and provide guidance regarding how to access it.

Solution:FSA is creating an infographic to promote the IRS DRT and provide general information about how to access it.

IRS DRT Promotion

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Resource for seeing the changes:

FAFSA demo sitehttp://fafsademo.test.ed.gov/

User Name: eddemoPassword: fafsatest

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QUESTIONS?

Thanks for coming!

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