Financial aid verification

who completes the financial aid verification? is it the financial aid office or the department of education. who detects the errors, understatement of income, fake tax forms etc. do FA office import info from the irs or the us department of education does

Either the school or the Department of Education can choose FAFSAs for verification, but it is the school that actually conducts the verification.

Most of the FAFSAs selected for verification are chosen by the Department - in fact, every year, the Department randomly selects 30 percent of ALL FAFSAs for verification. Other applications are intentionally selected when the student submits information that triggers "red flags" during processing. When the schools receive verification instructions from the Department, the FAFSAs are "scored" to indicate which forms are most dubious. Those are supposed to receive special attention during verification.

The five items that a school MUST verify are:

Household size
Number enrolled in college
Adjusted gross income
US income tax paid
Certain forms of untaxed income and benefits

The Department of Education has specified specific rules about how the financial aid office must verify each of those items - what documents and other evidence are acceptable.

By the way, the penalty for lying on a FAFSA form is a fine of no more than $20,000 and imprisonment of up to 5 years.

I hope that helped.

When you submit for your FAFSA they are only randomly checked for accurate tax information or bank statements.

Usually you get your PIN, fill out FAFSA and then depending on the school accept your awards letter through mail or online.