Verification is the process of confirming that your and, if applicable, your parent's or spouse's information reported on your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is accurate. Verification concerns most need-based federal student aid programs, but it isn't required if you are only eligible to receive non-need based federal forms of financial aid such as a Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loan or Graduate PLUS Loan, a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan, a TEACH Grant, etc.
However, federal regulations do not allow you to avoid verification by simply choosing not to accept an offered need-based form of federal student aid, such as a Federal Direct Subsidized Loan.
If you are selected for verification, Governors State University's Office of Financial Aid will inform you of what documentation you will need to provide for the verification process. Typically, a student selected for verification will need to provide, at minimum, a completed verification worksheet. Additional, required verification documentation will vary depending upon the unique information you provided on your FAFSA application. Examples of documents you may need to turn into the office are listed at the bottom of this page.
If there are any differences between your FAFSA application information and your financial aid documents, we may need to send corrections electronically to have your information reprocessed. If corrections are sent, students will receive a new Student Aid Report from the federal processor.
The U.S. Department of Education highly encourages all FAFSA applicants to utilize the IRS Data Retrieval Tool that is available within the FAFSA on the web application. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool allows students and parents, who have already submitted their federal tax returns, to electronically transfer their tax information from the IRS to their FAFSA application. If you are selected for verification and you and, if applicable, your parent have utilized the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (without making any changes to the retrieved data), the amount of documentation requested by the Office of Financial Aid will be minimized. Find out if you are eligible to utilize the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.
The most commonly requested documents for verification are:
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