Wednesday, January 1, 2014

NOW: Interference with FAFSA Application

I am filling out the FAFSA online and I'm having problems with the U.S. government website that supports the FAFSA.

This is not the first time I've had a problem with it, with someone changing my answers, or doing other forms of hacking on my application.

I'm only in the first section of the FAFSA and there have already been two forms of obstruction and problem and the first was when I entered schools into the school select category, it came up blank and refused to give me any visible college.  It showed there were results and then wouldn't display them.  I had to re-enter the information again and see if it showed up and it didn't.  Then I had to start all over and it still wasn't showing up and then finally after over 5 minutes of this, it did.

The second problem that is occurring as I speak is that I am trying to enter numbers into the Opportunity (or other educational) tax credit box and the box isn't allowing more than 2 numbers.  So instead of being able to enter the fact I used a tax credit last tax season to claim $1,000, it is only allowing me to enter the number "10" and will not allow any other digits in the box for numeric tally.  I checked the guideline to it, with the help box next to it, and it states the number one should be allowed to enter would be up to $2,500. 

The only reason someone would interfere with the amount I add to this form is to create a delay in processing my FAFSA with a school asking questions about why it doesn't make sense.  So either I have to enter 2 digits and have it not make sense, and create a delay, OR I have to leave it out and have a government document that is false, when I have a tax record that proves I am owed a tax credit (which I still haven't received yet, to my knowledge).

So now further down on the assets page, where I am to enter how much I have, it is also providing the same problem and will not allow me to enter more than 2 digits.  The box is for $____.00 and you enter the number into the dollar side, not the cents side which is already rounded at .00.  I am trying to add the numbers, and it is not allowing anything past 2 digits into the box so it ends up being $10.00, $20.00, or any number up to $99.00 and nothing past that because it's not allowing additional digits in the form.

This is a Department of Education website.  The official one for FAFSA by-the-way and I began the application at around 10:20 p.m.

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