Did you know that the FACT Report number is our analysis of a family's capability of paying for ALL tuition bills and NOT per child across all private schools (grades PK-12) where they have children enrolled. "FACT" stands for "Family Anticipated Contribution Total." So, whether a family has five children enrolled or just one, the amount on the FACT Report remains the same and is what the family should be able to reasonably afford to pay each month toward all their tuition bills of all their enrolled children at PK-12 private schools. It is up to the school to make final award determinations and the school still retains the right to offer, modify, or decline financial aid.
We recently received an email asking if we could complete verification on an applicant with only tax forms but not all requested documents. This may have been due to the lateness of the application and trying to expedite admission. There may have been other reasons, too. Here is our response to this type of question when it comes up:
--------- This is not advisable because of IRS regulations that specify that all tuition aid applicants are evaluated in like manner. If a school is ever audited and it became known there were variances on evaluation procedures, there could be penalties if it was deemed those variances were not appropriate and provided differences in advantage to one applicant over another. That being said, there can be exceptions but those are best granted when agreed upon by a tuition aid committee, and not left to the discretion of one person. One of our goals is to help schools remain compliant with tuition aid application processes. We understand that time may be of the essence because of school start dates, but our advice remains the same for all school to make sure they follow the exact same process for each applicant to avoid any sense of favoritism. Please see this article for further clarification: Is Your Tuition Assistance Program Legal? |