FASFA, FASFA, FASFA

So your child wants to go to college and you keep hearing the term FASFA, but aren’t sure what that has to do with anything.  FASFA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid.  When preparing to send a child to college this is one of the first steps.  If your child is a senior and you are looking for fall admission, this should be prepared as early as possible (January 1 of year of admission).  Common objections are: I don’t have my tax return done.  Why apply if I will need to revise it later?  Why not wait until I have the correct information?  Answer: because funds are allocated based on the date of application, not the date of correct submission.  Assuming your child qualified for aid, but you did not apply until June, you risk the Federal Government running out of its budgeted allocation for the year.  Using last year’s tax return as an estimate of this year’s income will be the starting point.  When final numbers are known, you can submit corrections.  Remember this is free aid.  You should NOT have to pay anyone to prepare this form for you.  A great help resource is your son or daughters high school guidance team.  Many of the schools will be conducting college nights where they explain the process of finding a college and applying for scholarships.  While you can fill out a paper FASFA form and mail it in, if you have internet access you should be good to go.  So let’s go through the steps.

Find the FASFA web site at www.FASFA.gov.  Register as a student and parents register as parents.  PIN numbers will be issued so write them down in a safe place or print out the PIN information.  If you do not have an email account, a free email account can be established at yahoo.com or google.com.  Students fill out the form, but in reality the parents hold all the relevant information and will likely fill the forms out.  Not all parents are comfortable opening up their finances to their children. 

What information do we need from the student? 

• If the student worked and is filing a tax return, the respective 1040
• Student W-2s for the respective year.
• Student’s current bank statements.
• Student social security number

What information do the parent/legal guardian’s need?

• Parent’s tax return ( don’t wait, use previous year as estimate)
• Parent’s investment records, business or farm records, mortgage and debt information.
• Current account statements, bank, brokerage, savings, etc.
• Parent’s payment information to untaxed income items such as child support received.

How do the respective colleges receive our FASFA information?  Each college has a code.  You can find the codes by asking the college admission department.  I believe they can also be accessed from a drop down menu while filling out the FASFA form. 

For more information check the government web site http://studentaid.ed.gov/resources#videos-and-images

This is not as time consuming as it sounds and is a great way to support your child’s aspirations.  Who knows, you may even want to go back to school.  Get going!