Georgia Form 875, titled Verification of Educational Assistance Income, is the DFCS document that lets your school’s financial aid office confirm your enrollment status and report your grants, scholarships, loans, and work-study earnings to the county office handling your SNAP case. You sign the authorization in the middle of the form, then a school official completes the verification section and you return the finished form to your caseworker.1Georgia Department of Human Services. Form 875 – Verification of Educational Assistance Income
When You Will Be Asked for Form 875
If you are 18 to 49 and enrolled at least half-time in an institution of higher education, federal law restricts your SNAP eligibility unless you meet a specific exemption.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 USC 2015 – Eligibility Disqualifications Form 875 is how DFCS verifies several of those exemptions — work-study participation in particular — and how it documents the educational income flowing to your household.3Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. 3245 Students
Georgia’s student eligibility manual treats the form as optional, so a caseworker may accept other documentation showing the same facts.4Georgia Department of Family and Children Services. Food Stamp Student Eligibility In practice, it is the standard verification route, and sending the right form back is usually faster than negotiating substitutes.
How To Fill Out Each Section
The form has three sections and three different people complete them. Getting the right person to handle each part is the easiest way to keep the form from bouncing back.
Section 1: Caseworker Information
Your DFCS caseworker fills in the top block before giving or mailing the form to you. This section carries the date, your case name and case number, the name and address of your school directed to the financial aid officer, the caseworker’s load number, and their phone number. If you receive a blank form without this section filled in, contact your caseworker before taking it to the school — the financial aid office needs to know which county office should receive the response.1Georgia Department of Human Services. Form 875 – Verification of Educational Assistance Income
Section 2: Student Authorization
You sign the authorization statement in the middle of the form. Your signature allows the school to release information about your educational assistance income, tuition, mandatory fees, other institutional costs, and enrollment status to the county DFCS office named at the top. The section also asks for your printed name, Social Security Number, and student identification number. The authorization language states that the information will be used to determine your household’s eligibility for SNAP or public assistance benefits; read it before you sign.1Georgia Department of Human Services. Form 875 – Verification of Educational Assistance Income
Section 3: School Official Verification
After you sign, take the form to your school’s financial aid office or registrar. A school official answers four yes-or-no enrollment questions:
- Whether the school or program requires a high school diploma or equivalency for enrollment.
- Whether a high school diploma or equivalency is required before completing the program.
- Whether there are standard requirements to earn the degree or certificate.
- Whether you are enrolled at least half-time.
The official then lists every source of educational assistance you receive — Pell, BEOG, SSIG, Perkins, HOPE, grants, scholarships, fellowships, internships, work-study — with the dollar amount for each, the period of time it covers, and any expenses the money is specifically earmarked for. For an internship, the official explains whether you receive wages on top of educational assistance and whether you are classified as an employee, a student, or both. For work-study, the official confirms whether the program is state or federally financed, the school term it covers, and the start and end dates.1Georgia Department of Human Services. Form 875 – Verification of Educational Assistance Income
The school official signs the form and prints their title, phone number, and the date. An incomplete school section is the usual reason these forms come back. Before you leave the financial aid office, check that every field has an answer and the signature is at the bottom.
Where To Get the Form and Where To Send It
Form 875 is available as a PDF through Georgia’s Policy and Manual Management System (PAMMS), listed in Appendix F of the SNAP policy manual. A Spanish-language version sits at the same location, and any county DFCS office can give you a paper copy.5Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. Appendix F Forms Table of Contents – SNAP The most recent revision is dated June 2023.
Once the school completes its section, return the form to the county DFCS office handling your SNAP case. You can hand-deliver or mail it; ask your caseworker whether the office accepts fax or scanned copies. Keep a photocopy for your records.
What Those Dollar Amounts Mean for Your Benefits
This is the part most students want to know. Educational assistance from an educational source is excluded income for SNAP purposes. That includes Pell Grants, HOPE and Zell Miller Scholarships, Perkins Loans, Federal Direct Stafford Loans (subsidized and unsubsidized), Federal Work-Study earnings, TRIO grants such as Upward Bound, the College Assistance Migrant Program, and Montgomery GI Bill education benefits. Georgia DFCS policy states the list is not exhaustive, so other educational-source funding follows the same rule.3Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. 3245 Students Reporting these amounts honestly on Form 875 does not push you off benefits; it documents what the agency already treats as excluded.
The Meal-Plan Rule That Can Still Disqualify You
Even if you meet an exemption, you are ineligible for SNAP if your institution provides more than half of your daily meals. Georgia policy defines this as a majority — more than 50 percent of three meals per day — provided by the school as part of the enrollment arrangement.3Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. 3245 Students If you live on campus with a mandatory full meal plan, check whether your plan crosses that line before you apply.
Penalties for False Information
Providing false or misleading information on Form 875, or withholding information to increase your benefit or stay eligible, can be classified as an Intentional Program Violation. Georgia DFCS defines an IPV as any deliberate act to establish, maintain, or inflate a household’s SNAP benefits through dishonest reporting, and an IPV can be established through a court conviction or an administrative finding.6Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. Intentional Program Violations
Disqualification periods escalate with each offense:
- First offense: 12-month disqualification from SNAP.
- Second offense: 24-month disqualification.
- Third offense: permanent disqualification.
These periods carry across state lines. If you committed an IPV in another state, Georgia counts it when deciding which offense level applies, and once a disqualification period starts it runs for its full duration regardless of whether you would otherwise become eligible during that time.6Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. Intentional Program Violations