FAFSA- A Vital Part of Going to College

If you go to the correct page, at www.fafsa.gov, it will look like this!

Hello all you college-bound seniors! Most of you have already applied to the colleges of you choice and are now sitting at home constantly thinking about which schools will accept you and which ones won’t. I know for a fact that a lot of you are thinking about how you are going to pay for college and looking into scholarships and grants. Well, today is your lucky day, I’m here to help. When applying to college, all students should fill out a FAFSA application. What’s a FAFSA you ask? FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA is an application that basically determines how much financial aid a college student needs. You have the opportunity to start filling out your FAFSA for the 2015-2016 school year now. Although, you can’t submit it until January 1, 2015. Students are advised to get the FAFSA submitted as soon as possible, so that each student has a good chance for maximum financial aid. You can fill out the application electronically or by paper.

What do you need to complete the FAFSA? Well, that’s easy. All you need is your social security number, your parent’s social security number, federal tax information (tax returns), other financial records, nontaxable income records, and Information on cash, savings and checking balances included. See, it’s not much. In fact, you can wait until the very last day and then fill it out by yourself. Make sure you guess your parents information with low numbers for more financial aid. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? Wrong. People, this needs to be taken seriously. Make sure that you collaborate with your parents every step of the way because this is nearly impossible to do without them. Also, make sure that your application is as honest as possible. You don’t want to purposefully say your parents make less money than they actually do because that is a crime.

The FAFSA is going to take time. If you are a dependent, meaning you will rely on your parents for their financial means then your parents have to do most of the work, but if your independent, meaning you’re married or emancipated, then you have to fill it out with your information and, if you have one, your spouse’s. Also, while the FAFSA does help to decide what your household has to contribute toward college, you could end up with an extremely high number. That is why you should already by applying for scholarships. Don’t wait until you get your FAFSA income contribution report and find out you have to contribute more money than you’re willing. Go to fastweb.com and look at the interesting and relatively easy applications for scholarships.

Mr. Arnt and Ms. Salisbury will host a Financial Aid evening to help seniors and their families, and this session will include help with FAFSA.

Anyways, good luck to all of you seniors who are eagerly waiting for their college acceptance letters and I hope that you all get into the colleges of your choices.

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