Professional Judgment

I want to introduce you to one of the most powerful tools that can make college more affordable.  

It's called PJ, or Professional Judgment, and it is a process of formally appealing a financial aid award. Beginning with the 2023-2024 academic year, it is used when a college unit receives a FAFSA or discovers conflicting information.

Responsibly

·       No institution can deny PJ. Requests

·       Institutions are required to publicize the opportunities that students could pursue.

        Institutions are required to publicize the timeframes.

·       Dependency overrides carry over from year to year for the same or other institutions.

Financial aid administrators can reduce income to zero with the documentation of unemployment benefits and other emergencies

Overview

• ·     PJ provides responsiveness to students’ circumstances and needs analysis.

•        Allows financial aid administrators the authority to override a student's dependency status and a student’s household experiencing exceptional circumstances.

• ·   Financial Aid Administrators can also use it to adjust components of a student’s Cost of Attendance or data that determines a student’s Student Aid Index.  

• ·   Considers a student’s unusual circumstances that justify classifying a dependent student as Independent.

• ·Adjusts elements of a student’s Cost of Attendance to reflect a student’s special circumstances.

• Addresses a discrepancy after receiving conflicting information regarding a student.

• Reports any fraudulently obtained federal funds to the Department.

• Dependency Overrides

Dependency overrides alter the dependency status from dependent, factoring in parental income, to independent, which only considers student income, thereby increasing the amount of unmet need.

Qualifying circumstances

·       Student or parent incarceration

·       Legally granted refugee or asylum status

·       Parental abandonment or estrangement

·       Human trafficking as described in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7101 et seq)

·       Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

Exclusions

·       Parents who do not claim the students on their income tax return.

·       Parents refuse to contribute to the students' education.

·       Parents refuse to provide their FAFSA information.

·       Students demonstrate complete self-sufficiency

Reasons to Submit a Professional Judgement Request:

• Parents enrolled at least half-time in a degree-seeking program.

• Death or disability of the wage earner.

• Fluctuations in family income.

• Business income losses.

• Disaster-related losses.

• One-time taxable income.

• Changes in dependency status.

• High consumer debt.

• Retirement fund distributions.

• Rental income and losses.

• One-time capital gains.

• Co-owned properties.

• Imputed asset values.

• Income and assets are not proportional.

• Exceptional medical and other expenses.

• Stepparent circumstances.

• Separation and divorced parents.

• Unusually high childcare and dependent care expenses.

• Sabbatical leave.

• Situations not considered Special Circumstances.

• Vacation expenses

• Tithing expenses

• Standard living expenses (e.g., utilities, credit card expenses, children's allowances, etc.)

• Mortgage payments

• Car payments

• Lawn care

• Credit card or other personal debt problems

• All other discretionary expenses