Introduction
This guide is intended for college financial aid administrators and counselors who help students begin the aid process—filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form, verifying information, and making corrections and other changes to the information reported on the FAFSA.
Throughout the Federal Student Aid Handbook we use “college,” “school,” and “institution” interchangeably unless a more specific use is given. Similarly, “student,” “applicant,” and “aid recipient” are synonyms. “Parents” in this volume refers to the parents of dependent students, and “you” refers to the primary audience of the Handbook: financial aid administrators at colleges. “We” indicates the U.S. Department of Education (the Department, ED), and “federal student aid” and “Title IV aid” are synonymous terms for the financial aid offered by the Department.
We appreciate any comments that you have on the Application and Verification Guide (AVG), as well as all the volumes of the FSA Handbook. We revise the text based on questions and feedback from the financial aid community, so please reach out to us about how to improve the Handbook through the “Contact Customer Support” feature in our Partner Connect’s Help Center clicking on “FSA Handbook” under the Topic section.
Changes for 2022-2023
Throughout the AVG, all dates, pertinent tax return and schedule information, along with various resources and references have been updated to support the requirements associated with the 2022-2023 processing year and the 2020 base tax year. Also, where appropriate, links and publications associated with FSA’s new Partner Connect and Knowledge Center have been properly updated.
We added information in Chapter 2 under the “Step One: General Student Information” section highlighting the FAFSA Simplification Act elimination of the Selective Service and drug-related conviction student eligibility requirements which started in the 2021–2022 award year.
In Chapter 2, under “Assets” in the “Step Two and Four: Income and Asset” section, we provided information indicating that Bitcoins (virtual currency) are treated as an asset on the FAFSA form.
In Chapter 3, we added a new section entitled “Children of Fallen Heroes Scholarship Act” briefly describing the EFC impact associated with Pell-eligible students who qualify for this benefit.
We removed text from the beginning of Chapter 4 referring to the verification waivers afforded students and schools in the 2021-2022 award year as outlined in GEN-21-05. If additional verification waivers are established specifically for the 2022-2023 award year due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, we will update the AVG accordingly.
Throughout Chapter 4 we removed all references to high school completion status under V4 and V5 since it was removed as a verifiable item in the September 1, 2021, Federal Register notice.
Under the “Reporting results for groups V4 and V5” section in Chapter 4, we updated the numeric codes to account for the removal of the high school completion status requirement under V4 and V5 as outlined in the September 1, 2021 electronic announcement.
Under the “Professional Judgement” section in Chapter 5, we added a reference to GEN-21-02 reminding institutions of their ability to perform PJs during the current COVID-19 pandemic.