How Will the School Know If a Student Or Parent Changed Family Size On the FAFSA?

Scenario: A parent consented to have federal tax information (FTI) transferred to the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) via the FUTURE Act Direct Data Exchange (FA-DDX), which populated family size using the number of dependents on the tax return. The number in the family size is now different from the number of dependents on the tax return, so the parent manually updated the family size when completing the FAFSA.

Answer: You will know that family size was changed if there is a figure for updated family size in the Non-Financial Information section of the ISIR. FTI transferred from the IRS (including the number of dependents reported on the tax return for the applicable tax year) is included in the FTI Module (FTI-M) section of the ISIR; the fields in this FTI-M section are separate from the fields used for manually reported information. If consent is given to transfer FTI when completing the FAFSA, there is no opportunity to manually enter other tax information; however, the FAFSA contributor can manually enter family size if it has changed since filing the tax return.