Growing up, I am sure you have heard it time and time again: practice makes perfect. When it comes to financial aid for college, your FAFSA cannot be anything less than perfect (for your wallet‘s sake!). In order to avoid delays or miss out aid you qualify for, why not practice?
While applying online is faster and easier, using FAFSA’s paper application is a great way to practice. This form is available for download at www.fafsa.ed.gov. The paper FAFSA is a great way to gather your information for when you complete your online form. This form asks the exact same questions as the online application and is a great reference for when you complete your “real” FAFSA form. The online form will make reference to the questions on the paper form, so once you are sure you have the practice form correct, you can simply plug in your answers on the online application. Assuming you review your paper practice form once and then the online form once, you should be good to go, error free! This paper FAFSA form is a great planning tool.
The United States Department of Education is now offering an online tool called FAFSA4caster. This tool allows your to estimate your eligibility for student aid early, allows you to transfer your information from the FAFSA4caster to the online FAFSA application once you are ready to apply, provides you with your PIN number, increases your knowledge of financial aid, and allows you to determine your expected family contribution using various financial situations. Check it out at: www.FAFSA4caster.ed.gov.
The federal government makes it possible to complete your FAFSA error free and with ease. Taking advantage of these tools will save you time and possibly give you a greater amount of aid. Practice this year and next year you will fly through your FAFSA application.
It’s important to fill out your FAFSA form thoroughly and honestly; you may be denied financial aid for turning in a hastily applied FAFSA. In order to prevent this from being a possibility, practicing filling out the FAFSA is an option that will help ensure that when the time comes to fill out the real thing, it’s done properly.
Getting ready for college is stressful. Between juggling standardized tests, finals, and picking a school, it’s easy to do things last minute. Even in college, dealing with the heavy workload, along with jobs and internships, having to do all of that within overlapping deadlines can sometimes encourage procrastination and forgetfulness. Unfortunately, this means that some things can come out rushed, and sometimes financial aid forms get put on the backburner.
How to fill out the form
Physical or Online Forms?
Where to begin? Firstly, you’ll want to make sure you know how you’re going to fill out the form; physically or online. When signing online, you’ll have to be signed up for a FSA ID. This is the first step in filling out your FAFSA: without the FSA ID, you cannot log in. If you cannot sign up for an FSA ID for any reason, you can also use personal identifiers (Name, birthdate, and social security number) to access the FAFSA online. You are also able to fill out the form physically if you prefer. In that case, they ask for your personal identifiers.
Student Information Section Part 1
Now you need to fill out the Student Information section. Don’t worry too much about this section: it’s all about you! This section consists mostly of information you already know, such as your marital status, social security number, citizenship status, and parental education (the highest level of education your parents have, which does not have to be exact.) Make sure to prepare any documents needed for this section, such as citizenship papers and social security number.
Dependency Status
The next section focuses on dependency status. Dependency status refers to whether or not the person is independently secure enough financially away from their parents. Essentially, this information is needed to gauge whether or not you need to fill out the parental section of the form. The factors are listed on the paper, but some examples of exemption from filing out the parental form are people born before January 1st 1999, veterans, or if you were or are in legal guardianship.
Parental Information
The parental information section is the most intensive section in terms of paperwork, so make sure you have all of the documents on hand necessary to fill out this section of the FAFSA. You will need both parent’s social security numbers and birthdates, as well as know if they are dislocated workers.
Your parents can use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to access and transfer tax return information if they don’t already have it on them. Here’s some other information you will need from them in order to complete this section:
- Adjusted gross income
- Earnings for the appropriate year
- Net worth of business
- If they received any government assistance (if anyone in the household uses SNAP, Medicaid, free or reduced school lunch, etc.)
- If they have needed to pay child support, if they have combat pay, etc.
- Untaxed income information
- Any additional information on assets
Student Information
Now we return to student information.
In this section, personal tax information is placed, such as:
- You (or you and your spouse’s) adjusted gross income
- Your earnings for the appropriate year
- (if applicable) your spouse’s earnings for the appropriate year
You will also need household information on if anyone in your house uses SNAP, SSI, free or reduced lunch, etc. They will also ask to check boxes if you have taxable income from a grant or scholarship aid reported to the IRS as income, paid child support, etc. Another thing they will want to know is untaxed income information, as well as assets and net worth information.
One Step Away
Once you have all of this information, you’re ready to fill out the practice form! You will be one step away from filling out your FAFSA form. Taking this extra step by filling out the practice form assures accuracy, and helps the process progress much quicker when you get to the real thing. Missing a document could set you back a few days if you need to retrieve a lost file. The FAFSA website recommends you have the documents mentioned in this article, plus any other documents specified on the FAFSA website. Good luck filling out the FAFSA!
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