Special Circumstances

If your financial situation changes substantially after you complete the FAFSA, you can submit a Financial Aid Revision Request form to have your financial need reconsidered.

UMD processes your original FAFSA application prior to processing a revision request; revision review is typically not done until June of the award year. Please anticipate that your fall semester awards will be based on the information you provided on your original FAFSA submission and respond to your award notice accordingly.

The following circumstances may qualify you to complete a Financial Aid Revision Request:

• Separation, divorce, or death of parent(s) or spouse
  • If any of these happen after you have already filed your FAFSA.
• Loss of employment
  • If you and/or your spouse and/or parent(s) earned money in the past year and had an involuntary reduction in wages of at least 10 weeks duration as a result of reduced hours, layoff, or other reason.
• One-time income
  • If you and/or your spouse and/or parent(s) received one-time income in the previous year that that will not occur this year (e.g., divorce settlement, rollover in Roth IRA, past-year Social Security payments, etc.). Special consideration will not be given if this one-time income is a result of an inheritance, gambling winnings, pension, capital gain, insurance settlement, or early distribution of retirement accounts.
• Medical care expenses
  • Expenses already paid directly by the student or spouse or parent(s) can be considered; pending expenses (i.e., expenses yet-to-be-paid) are not eligible.
    • Note: The payment of insurance premiums, regular health maintenance, and routine expenses such as eye glasses and elective cosmetic procedures (e.g., orthodontic braces) are NOT considered unusual medical expenses and will not be considered.
• Unexpected/non-recurring medical expenses
  • If you and/or your spouse and/or parent(s) have paid for unusual or unexpected medical expense for a member of your household that are not reimbursed. These expenses are over and above typical health maintenance costs due to an unexpected, extraordinary or non-recurring emergency or incident. The Office of Financial Aid and Registrar assumes that you and your family members will have insurance coverage. Only those costs not covered by insurance or another agency may be considered.
• Tuition expenses for elementary or secondary education
  • If you and/or your spouse and/or parent(s) pay elementary or secondary school tuition for a member of your family during the academic year; only the expenses not covered or reimbursed by another agency/source will be considered.
• Parent in college
  • The University will evaluate this on a case-by-case basis. Having a parent in college can typically be considered for a parent who loses his or her job, who is involuntarily unemployed and needs to go through retraining, or whose employer who requires the employee to be in college. Note: If college costs are being provided by the employer or an agency such as Job Training, the parent being in college cannot be considered for financial aid revision.