Special Circumstances

2025-2026 Special Circumstances Request Process

During the course of the year, a family may experience circumstances such as unemployment, death, separation and/or divorce, unusual medical expenses not covered by insurance, etc., that may have a significant impact on their ability to finance college costs.  Often this information was not able to be reported on the initial 2025-26 FAFSA application.  

Special circumstances may be grounds for a review of a student’s financial aid eligibility in the current award year; this is referred to as professional judgement by the US Department of Education. The procedure for filing a request for special circumstances consideration due to sever income and or other changes is as follows:

  1. The initial 2025-2026 FAFSA/Renewal FAFSA, using prior-prior 2023 calendar year income, has been filed by the family and the resulting Student Aid Report (SAR) has been received by the student. 
  2. Projected 2025 calendar year family income has been reduced due to unemployment, death, separation, divorce, etc. 
  3. Send an email regarding request for special circumstances consideration to the Office of Financial Aid at financialaid@fisk.edu with the student’s name, Fisk Student ID number and an explanation of the circumstances. Please include dates when events occurred, and the name or names of the person or persons that experienced the circumstance. 
  4. The request for special circumstances consideration is evaluated by the Office of Financial Aid. Based on the circumstances, additional forms will be emailed to the student/parent for completion, as well as further instructions on how to document the circumstances to meet Federal requirements.
  5. Once all completed forms and documents are received and reviewed by the Office of Financial Aid, a response regarding the outcome is sent to the student via email.

If it is determined that special circumstances make a student eligible to receive the Federal PELL Grant or allows a student to receive more in Federal PELL Grant than they are already receiving, Fisk University will submit a correction to the current year FAFSA to US Department of Education.

The student will receive an updated Student Aid Report (SAR) once the FAFSA correction is processed by the US Department of Education.

Once Fisk University receives the notice that the FAFSA is corrected, changes are made to the student’s existing financial aid for the award year.

If a student is already receiving the maximum amount of the PELL Grant due to having a Student Aid Index (SAI) of 0 to -1,500 per the current year FAFSA, they cannot be made more eligible through a special circumstances request.

The special circumstances request process is document and labor intensive and may take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks for completion, depending on how quickly forms and documentation are submitted to the Office of Financial Aid after request.

Special circumstances requests submitted during high volume periods for the Office of Financial Aid (July 15th through September 15th for the fall semester, December 1st through February 1st for the spring semester) may experience increased processing times.