Verification is a process where the college will ask the student to confirm or provide information to the college financial aid office regarding their FAFSA. Sometimes a FAFSA is chosen by a random chance spot check, and the student will need to confirm information. Sometimes the student has left out key information on the FAFSA, and the college will require it be provided. Usually, the verification worksheet will be a link in an email from the college financial aid office that will lead to either an electronic form or a paper copy of the verification form.
At minimum, verification will ask for two major pieces of information. One piece will be listing the names, ages, and relationships of the members of the household to the student filing the FAFSA. If a student listed more than one person attending college on the FAFSA for that college year in their household, that person will need to be designated on the verification worksheet.
The second piece will be answering who earned income and filed taxes for the tax year that the FAFSA pertains to. If a student is dependent and lists parent information on the FAFSA, then they would indicate that the parents earned income and filed taxes. The same pertains to the student if they earned income and filed taxes. If the tax information is entered manually, the verification form will advise the student to go back into the FAFSA and use the Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) to import the tax information for the parents and student if they filed a tax return. If the student used the DRT to import tax information into the FAFSA, commonly the verification worksheet will have a place to mark that the DRT was used. If the DRT was not used, the college will ask for a tax transcript, tax return, W-2 forms, Schedule 1 form to be turned into the college financial aid office. Whatever the college financial aid office is asking for, you will need to provide to finish your financial aid process.
Sometimes the college will have other forms for the student/parents to complete the financial aid process. Whatever the case, read the email and supply the information that the college financial office is requesting. Complete the verification process as soon as you can because your financial aid is stalled until it is completed. If you do not understand what you are being requested to do, contact the financial aid office of your college. Do not ignore an email from the college financial aid office because ignoring it will not make it go away.
To book an appointment with ICAN to receive free FAFSA assistance call 877-272-4692, or go to the ICAN website at www.icansucceed.org and click on Schedule an Appointment. We are very glad to help you!
Steve - ICAN Southwest Iowa Center