FAFSA

Tuition costs in the U.S. have increased at an alarming rate over the past decade. Between 2008 and 2018, the average yearly cost to attend a private college has gone up 25% while public university rates have surged 29%. This has made the FAFSA program more important than ever for people want to earn a degree.

Federal student aide is one of the many ways students can make tuition costs more manageable. Every year, the U.S. Department of Education gives out over $122.4 billion in federal grants, loans and work-study funds. Almost 13 million students use this money to help pay for college. To potentially get some of those funds, all you have to do is complete a free application.

What is a FAFSA and why is it so important?

FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Just as it sounds, this is a form that you fill out and use to apply for financial aid disbursement. It’s the government’s way of determining who needs help paying for college. Federal financial Aide can either be awarded through grants, borrowed through student loans or earned through work-study programs.

Since FAFSA's are free, every student planning on attending college should apply. It’s the most important document when it comes to getting financial assistance. If you don’t file, you won’t get any help from the government. Despite this, millions of dollars are left unclaimed every year by students who neglected to complete the process.

Here’s why everyone should apply:

It’s free and there’s no need to pay someone to prepare it.
Even students from upper-income families could qualify for financial aid disbursement.
By submitting, you automatically qualify for federal student loans, which have lower interest rates than private loans.
Submitting a FAFSA application is required for many work-study programs.
Many merit-based scholarships use FAFSAs to determine scholarship amounts.

How does the program work?

Administered by the Department of Education, the FAFSA application is used to assess your family’s financial standing. You can submit it online, through the myStudentAid app or by printing and mailing a physical copy. The online method, which involves creating an FSA ID to access your account, is the most convenient.

After your application is processed, you’ll get a Student Aid Report(SAR) that details your Expected Family Contribution(EFC). The results are then passed on to your school’s financial student aid office. Your EFC number is not how much your family must pay; rather, it’s what your college will use to determine your financial aid eligibility.

What kinds of questions are included in a FAFSA?

With over 100 fields to fill out, the application document can seem pretty daunting and time-consuming. However, many of those are pretty straightforward questions, such as your name, address and date of birth. Things get a little more complicated further into the form when you have to provide information about your taxes, income and residency status. Green Card holders and U.S. citizens are eligible for aid. Even if you don’t fall into either of those categories, it’s worth completing the form if you have a Social Security number; you could be eligible for private institutional financial student aid packages and state aid.

If you’re a FAFSA dependent student, you’ll also need to answer some questions about your parents. This includes queries about their marital status, Social Security numbers and state of residency. FAFSA for parents is very important, so you may want them to help you with this part. If your parents are separated, you’ll have to pick a “primary parent.” This will be the parent you spent the most time with over the last year.

What are some of the most important FAFSA requirements?

There are many factors that determine financial Aide Eligibility . Besides being a U.S. citizen or an eligible noncitizen, you must have a high school diploma or GED certificate. Using the aid also requires being enrolled or accepted as a student in an eligible degree or certificate program. Once you’re in college, you must maintain satisfactory academic progress to renew FAFSA. Every school has its own criteria for this.

How long does the application generally take to process?

If you completed your application on the web, the FSA office will process the results within three to five days. You can check your application status and Student Aid Report online using your FSA ID. If you submitted by mail, processing could take up to three weeks.

The FSA will also send your FSA to the schools you listed on your application. While every college can access this information the day after it’s processed, individual departments may have their own processing times. Most schools will create their financial student aid packages by the beginning of May.