The CAO must decide whether all the income must be counted or whether part or none of it must be counted. Income other than educational assistance is treated the same as income for any other applicant/recipient group member.
To figure out what income from educational assistance must be counted, the CAO must:
Find out and prove where excluded and countable loans, grants, and scholarships come from and what their total amounts are.
Not pay attention to any excluded income.
Subtract all allowable deductions from countable income even if the student has enough income that is excluded to cover the expenses.
Spread out the remaining countable income over the period covered so that the same amount is counted for each month. Count it as unearned income.
Example: Ms. Harris received a PELL grant of $900 to cover her first school term. She also received a $500 scholarship from her school. Her tuition and fees total $600.
|
Excluded educational assistance |
$900.00 |
|
Countable educational assistance |
$500.00 |
Updated February 14, 2012, Replacing June 13, 2008