Filing the FAFSA: Helping your child pay for college

Every year millions of students and parents log into the FAFSA website to determine financial aid eligibility for college. This process is critical in determining what financial aid your child can qualify for. Here is a list of key factors you as a parent should understand while going through this process.

• The Free Application For Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is used to determine what need based funding a student can qualify for. This is separate from the awarding of merit based scholarships.

• Need based funding is determined by household income, savings and assets. The lower your income, the more likely your child will qualify for need based funding.

• In order to apply for any federal loans including Stafford, Parent Plus or Perkins a FAFSA form must be filed. At the minimum every student that files a FAFSA form will qualify for an unsubsidized Stafford loan. Which means everyone should file a FAFSA form!

• You will need to input data from your prior year tax return in order to complete the FAFSA form. This means for the 2010-2011 FAFSA you need the 2009 tax return.

• Most importantly, make sure you E-Sign the application. In order to E-sign you must create a PIN. If the FAFSA is not E-Signed then it will require a paper based signature that takes much longer to process.

• Every college will need to view the FAFSA form in order to determine aid eligibility and there is a deadline for filing. Please check this site for state by state deadlines. Keep in mind these are the state requirements and do not reflect institutional deadlines. In order to maximize funding eligibility the earlier the FAFSA is filed the better. When a school awards institutional need based grants it is done on a first come first serve basis. An early FAFSA form is filed prior to February 15.

• If you want to file the FAFSA form early, but do not yet have your prior year tax return ready by February 15 (like most people) then estimate your numbers as best you can. This way you can meet the college’s deadline for institutional need based grants. When your actual tax return is ready you can log back into the FAFSA account using your PIN number to make any corrections to your data if needed.
By making sure the FAFSA form is filed early (prior to February 15th) you can ensure that your child qualifies for as much financial aid as possible. Even if the only funding made available by filing the FAFSA form is federal loans then it is well worth your time. Partner with your child through this process so that it gets completed and together you can make college an affordable investment.