FSA Investigating Increases in Reported Combat Pay Issue
By Jill Desjean, NASFAA Policy & Federal Relations Staff
NASFAA’s Board of Directors met with officials from the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) this week, where they learned that FSA is researching the increase in reported combat pay on the FAFSA that many schools have observed for the 2019-20 award year. Because combat pay is user-reported and not transferred to the FAFSA via the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT), FSA is researching what FAFSA changes, including a change to the question’s position on the online application, may be driving this change in user behavior.
In some cases, institutions may see Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) codes 400 and/or 401 for incorrectly reported combat pay for DRT users, such as when reported combat pay (or the total of reported combat pay plus other Additional Financial Information in questions 44 and 93) exceeds the student’s or parents’ Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Institutions should collect documentation and make ISIR corrections in accordance with Aug. 7, 2017 guidance for resolving these 400/401 codes. In the absence of ISIR codes 400 and 401, institutions may still choose to collect documentation of combat pay from students or parents if they believe that field was reported incorrectly.
NASFAA will continue to monitor this issue and will update members in Today’s News as we learn more.
Publication Date: 3/28/2019
Marjorie F | 8/28/2019 10:35:32 AM
Based on the few rare examples we have had, the users are NOT populating this field. It seems to be happening with the use of the IRS DRT for BOTH students and parents. The families we have helped never entered that data in the combat pay fields for both student and parent.
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