College is expensive, but the FAFSA — Free Application for Federal Student Aid — offers more than $150 billion to students each year in different
forms of aid.
“Some form of the FAFSA has been around for probably 40 years,” said Dan Davenport, director of Student Financial Aid Services. “It is what the federal government uses to determine eligibility for different programs.”
The FAFSA priority deadline is Feb. 15. The FAFSA looks at the financial status of a student and their parents. In order to fill it out, a student needs to know their income information with things such as tax returns, W-2 forms, how much they have in assets like stocks, bonds and saving and checking accounts, and any other income the may have.
“The information asks for your income from the year before,” Davenport said. “They are trying to assess your financial status, as accurately as they can, by using the most recent year.”
The FAFSA also looks at the price of tuition of the school a student is attending. With these, the financial need for a student is calculated.
In order to be considered for some of the aid, students must fill out and submit the FAFSA by the priority date. If a student misses the priority date, they will still receive money, but they will no longer eligible to receive the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant, work study and
many scholarships.
On March 1, financial aid sends out information to scholarship committees, and if financial aid does not have a student’s information, that student cannot be considered for those scholarships, Davenport said.
Anyone who is enrolled in a degree-seeking program can receive aid from FAFSA. Most of these programs require half-time enrollment, which means a student must be taking at least six credits.
“There are about 5,000 to 6,000 institutions that work with the FAFSA,” Davenport said. “Any institution that you can think of will work with it.”
The two types of aid available to students are gift aid and self-help aid. Gift aid consists of money that students do not need to pay back, such as the Federal Pell Grant, the supplemental grant and scholarships. Self-help aid is money that students work for, such as work study, or money that needs to be paid back, such as loans.
Students can start paying off loans at any time, but most students begin payments about six months after they are no longer enrolled in school, Davenport said. When students begin paying off loans, they are assigned a federal servicer.
“You are assigned a federal servicer, who is somebody who is going to work with you on making your loan payments,” Davenport said.
Federal servicers communicate with students and help them figure out one of the many options for a payment plan. Students can choose how many years they would like to take to pay off these loans, or payment plans based off their income.
“Students can go to the federal website, studentloans.gov, and it will talk about all the different payment plans, pick a payment plan, and see who your servicer is,” Davenport said.
The FAFSA is used across the country, so if a student decides to transfer, they can add the institution to the FAFSA, Davenport said. He said if a student withdraws from school, the money offered to them will not be used or lost.
Mckenah Lesko
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