Help Available for Income Changes
Will a Financial Aid Adjustment Help You?
When students complete their financial aid applications (FAFSA/TASFA) each year, these reflect income information from two years prior to the academic year for which a student is applying. However, sometimes a student’s family income may change from the time they completed their financial aid application to the time they begin the semester. When students and their families experience extreme changes to their personal life or financial situation, our Office of Financial Aid may be able to perform a ‘Financial Aid Adjustment’ (also known as a Professional Judgement) to better reflect a student’s family financial information more accurately.
Please watch our ‘Financial Aid Adjustment’ video below for more information:
For consideration of a ‘Financial Aid Adjustment’ we typically review circumstances that would alter your financial situation including the number of individuals currently living in your household. Some examples of when our Office of Financial Aid can process a ‘Financial Aid Adjustment’ could be if a student’s family recently experienced one of the following:
- Loss of Employment (For example, did the student or member of the household recently lose their job?)
- Loss of Benefits
- Medical Expenses (Has the student or household member incurred a significant amount of medical expenses?)
- Separation or Divorce (Is the student, if Independent or parents if Dependent; going through a separation or divorce?)
- Marriage, Birth of a Child, or Death (Have any of these life-changing events occurred after the student filed the financial aid application?)
A financial aid advisor will be happy to meet with students in person, by telephone, or via Zoom. If a financial aid advisor determines that a change to your financial aid application is appropriate, students will begin the ‘Request for Financial Aid Adjustment’ process.
We are here to help! Students who are currently experiencing any of the extenuating circumstances mentioned above and feel they can benefit from a ‘Financial Aid Adjustment’ should not hesitate to reach out to us if they have any questions about this process by calling us at (956) 882-4026 or emailing us at ucentral@utrgv.edu