Perhaps you’ve had a change in circumstances since you submitted the FAFSA, or you’ve discovered that even with the help of FAFSA.gov’s built-in fact checker your FAFSA contains an error. Here are some of the most common pieces of information to be updated or corrected:
- Your marital status
- Your parents’ marital status
- The death of a parent or sibling
- Employment status
- Major medical expenses
- Social Security numbers
- Parents’/stepparents’ income
- Untaxed income
- Income taxes paid
- Household size
- Number of household members in college
- Real estate and investment net worth
So, what happens if you’ve made a mistake? If necessary, corrections to FAFSA data may be made by:
- Visiting FAFSA.gov and accessing your data with your FSA ID.
- Requesting changes through the financial aid office of the school you plan to attend. (you’ll need your Data Release Number, or DRN.)
- Submitting documentation to the college’s financial aid office.
If you used last year’s tax information as an estimate when filing the FAFSA, it is also required that you make the correction once you’ve filed 2015 taxes.