It’s a joyful day for your high school senior when an offer of college admission arrives, and the joy is magnified by a financial aid award.
Award letters arrive along with (or soon after) acceptance letters. I remember the first time I saw one, my daughter’s senior year. Quite honestly, it was Greek to me.
How were we supposed to compare the offers? The letters included the same basic categories — loans, work-study, grants and scholarships — but without understanding what each category meant it was hard to tell whether or not the college was meeting all of our financial need (Total Cost of Attendance minus our Expected Family Contribution, or EFC). Every college was different and every award letter was different!
For college-bound students, scholarships can fill in the gap between what you can afford and the cost of the school. Most students believe college scholarships are a pipe dream if they aren’t athletes or 4.0 students. But nothing could be further from the truth. There are thousands of scholarships available for the taking. You just need to find them.
There are six key places to look. But remember: Finding them is half the battle. You have to put in the effort to apply and be vigilant in paying attention to requirements and deadlines.
Completing the FAFSA® form is the first step to obtaining federal student aid to pay for your college or career school. Follow these eight simple steps for FAFSA filing to set your student up for success and submit the form on time.
For many parents, understanding the FAFSA can be complicated. It’s not meant to be, but as with all government forms, it can be daunting.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form is the student’s responsibility, but when a student is considered a dependent student for FAFSA purposes, parents have a large role in the application process. Educate yourself about the process and opportunities so you can provide the guidance your child needs to do their part.
This year’s FAFSA changes are mainly cosmetic. The online FAFSA form is receiving a visual update that gives it a similar look and feel that puts it more in line with other tools featured on StudentAid.gov. A new simplified form being released in October of 2022 also has just 36 questions to answer, down from the 108 of previous years.
Noticeable changes you may see if you fill out the FAFSA later this year include:
STEM careers have become a national priority and students who aspire to careers in science, technology, engineering, and math will be happy to know that STEM scholarships abound.
Often, when you apply for scholarships in a specific area of interest, the competition is much less than if you apply for national scholarships with thousands of applicants. The fact there are fewer applicants improves your odds of being offered the scholarship.
STEM scholarships may be plentiful but how do you find them?
I will never forget the moment we received our Student Aid Report and I saw the EFC (Expected Family Contribution) on the right-hand corner. I was in shock as most parents are. How could the powers that be believe we could afford to pay that amount for college? It was a mystery to me how they came up with that number, as it is to most of you.
The EFC determines how much financial aid the colleges will award to your student. You can’t receive any federal or institutional aid without getting an EFC when you complete the FAFSA. We are stuck with it and will probably never truly understand how they use to determine how much money your family can afford to pay.
If you are going to need financial aid for college (and who doesn’t?), you will need to understand the EFC.
It’s that time of year when seniors will be weighing their college options. Choices will be made as parents and students evaluate colleges who offered admission.
The long wait is over and it’s time to make a decision. Which college will your student attend? This decision feels like the most important decision in his life up to this point and will weigh heavily on his mind and yours over the next month.
Before your teen makes the decision, however, you should weigh your college options. You would never purchase a home without determining its value, its fit for your family, or even its location. This college decision should be approached in the same manner. And to complicate matters, the decision has to be made in a timely manner—the National Candidate’s Reply Date is May 1st.
If your student didn’t get an offer of admission from his first or even second choice college, or he is accepted without enough financial aid, it’s time to re-evaluate the colleges on his list. Your teen should take a closer look at those schools on the list that weren’t on top. If he did his homework before applying, these schools should be more than sloppy seconds.
Many families are aware of the aid the federal government provides to college students. But did you know that states also have financial aid available for college students?
In 2018-2019, states awarded an average of $930 per full-time-equivalent undergraduate student in the U.S., according to the College Board’s Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2020 report. This continues a seven-year trend of rising state grant aid. But as state budgets see significant cuts in response to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, experts say the trend may pause or reverse.
For many parents, this will be the first year you will complete the FAFSA. Since you have never completed it before, you won’t notice the changes. However, it’s important to note the functionality of the form and the functions of the mobile app.
The Department of Education (ED) released a document this month summarizing the changes to the 2021-22 FAFSA. The most notable changes are the increase of the income threshold for the automatic-zero expected family contribution (EFC) and questions asked about the Schedule 1 tax form.
The 2021–22 FAFSA changes include the following:
The income threshold for an automatic zero Expected Family Contribution (EFC) increased from $26,000 to $27,000 for the 2021–22 award year.
When students and parents use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT), the IRS DRT will now transfer information about whether they filed a Schedule 1. The answer will be based on all current exceptions for filing a Schedule 1. The transferred data for the Schedule 1 fields will be masked.
For students and parents who don’t use the IRS DRT, the Schedule 1 help topics will be updated to include all current exceptions for filing a Schedule 1. “Capital Gains” has been removed as an exception and “Virtual Currency” has been added as an exception.
Many FAFSA help topics referencing financial forms now feature images of those forms with relevant line numbers highlighted.
In early June, ED published the federal need analysis methodology for the 2021-22 award year in the Federal Register. Per Section 479(c) of the Higher Education Act (HEA), ED is required to annually adjust the income level necessary to qualify an applicant for the zero expected family contribution. This adjustment is made according to increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
New functionalities in the MyStudentAid mobile app will include:
Dashboard – Access various types of popular tasks and a personalized page to help you determine what actions to take.
Settings – Edit/manage your account, using your username and password (FSA ID).
Aid Summary – View your federal student loan and grant history.
Notification Center – View and manage notifications regarding your student aid; household member and enrolled in college calculation assistance.
The paper FAFSA PDF will become available in October, and the color rotation for the paper form is green for 2021-22. FAFSA worksheets in English and Spanish will also be available.
When completing the FAFSA, even though it’s available October 1, it’s generally good to wait a week or two before filing because there will most certainly be kinks in the system–it happens. Don’t wait too long, however. With financial aid, the sooner you apply the better chances you have of snagging some of that free money!
Don’t forget to read the other articles related to FAFSA Week:
