It’s your gateway to federal grants, work-study options, and loans for college. On your FAFSA, you’ll provide the information that the financial aid office at your college or career school uses to determine how much financial aid you’re eligible to receive. Eligibility is assessed by your Expected Family Contribution (EFC), your year in school, your enrollment status, and the cost of your school.
The FAFSA is not short and sweet like a social media post. You’ll need to prepare by gathering documents with the information that the form will ask and then getting comfortable for while to work through the questions and enter all of your information. Completing the form online (rather than the paper copy) will reduce the number of questions you need to read and answer. Th eonline version streamlines the process for you by seamlessly eliminating the questions you don’t need to answer based on your previous answers.
The FAFSA has a due date, but plan for the opening date, not the closing date. Forms are available from October 1 and June 30. True, the window to complete the form for federal aid is wide, but don’t put it off and miss out. In fact, get in there as early as you can. The earlier you file, the better your options will for scholarships, grants, and work-study will be. Deadlines for aid from state, colleges, and career schools vary and are often earlier than the deadline for federal aid and also need your FAFSA to be filed. Get ready before October 1 and get it done as soon as you can after October 1. Think of it as practice for getting assignments in on time.
Know what you need to be. There are some eligibility requirements for financial aid, things to have before you can apply and satisfactory academic progress during your course of study. Standards for satisfactory academic progress vary by school or program, so as you start your first year, talk to your advisor about what those standards are. For FAFSA application eligibility, you’ll need to be:
- a high school graduate with a high school diploma or a recognized equivalent, such as a GED or a state-approved home-school high school education.
- a U.S. citizen, unless you’re a noncitizen with any of the following: a green card, an Arrival/Departure Record (I-94), battered immigrant-qualified alien status, a T visa, the child of a parent with a T-1 visa, or an eligible noncitizen with U.S. national status.
- enrolled in or accepted to an eligible degree or certificate program. But, if you’re not to that point yet, don’t let uncertainty about where you plan to apply or where you’ll be accepted stop you from submitting the FAFSA. The online form let’s you include FAFSA codes for up to 10 schools where you plan to apply. You can also make changes later to a submitted form if you need to.
Gather your supplies. Before you sit down to complete the form, save time by gathering what you need to fill it out. The required checklist of documents and information you need varies somewhat based on your citizenship and dependency status. In all cases, you’ll need your social security card, driver’s license (if you have one) and all of your taxed and untaxed income and financial records (bank statements). If you’re under 24, you’ll need the financial information from your parents as well.
