The boxes of admission and college fees are ticked. The future seems like a colourful canvas ready to be painted. However, how to fund it? Enter the Federal Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the go-to official form offering the path to federal financial assistance for college. Not just at a federal level, the application even makes a mark on the financial aid decisions made by individual colleges, universities, and various states.
Providing a gateway to a range of funding options including loans, scholarships, and grants, the FAFSA comes into play for assessing who the beneficiaries should be. The FAFSA application timeline spans over a 19-month window. It commences from Oct. 1 of the preceding year vis-à-vis the award year, ending on June 30 of the award year.
In an example context, applications for the academic year 2023–24 could be filed between Oct. 1, 2022, and June 30, 2024. The key highlight is to submit the application sooner than later since the aid is often offered on first-come, first-served terms.
Impacting the expected timeline, the FAFSA application of 2024–2025 has been deferred, now scaled to be available in December 2023. As per the Office of Federal Student Aid, part of the U.S. Department of Education, the value of federal aid has reached an impressive amount of approximately $240.7 billion this year as of Nov. 2023.
Hints suggesting the amount and nature of aid a family qualifies for are found in the questions featured in the FAFSA form. The data collected generates the Student Aid Index (SAI), replaced from the term "Expected Family Contribution (EFC)" since July 2023, thanks to the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act. SAI projects an eligibility scale for student aid rather than actual family contributions to expenses.
Financial aid results, comprised of different combinations of grants, work-study, and loans, are often delivered with college acceptance schedules. Interestingly, the award packages can vary between colleges.
The FAFSA application needs to be updated every year by the family to keep the aid active or to apply again in case their early application was unsuccessful.
Specifically, FAFSA requires a detailed income and asset disclosure, including specifics of bank accounts, holdings, real estate (except the family home), and businesses. A tool named IRS DRT (Data Retrieval Tool) proves useful for obtaining the required information directly from the family's tax returns.
In addition to FAFSA, another college assistance application named CSS Profile, which charges a fee of $25 for the first college applied to with $16 for each additional college, is used by numerous colleges, universities, and private scholarship programs to assess the student's eligibility for non-federal financial aid.
FAFSA eligibility prerequisites include financial need, enrollment in a diploma or certificate program at a college or university, and being a U.S. citizen or an eligible noncitizen. Other criteria include a valid Social Security number, high school graduation, satisfactory performance in school, among others.
The FAFSA, available from Oct. 1 of the year before entering college, sometimes operates on a first-come, first-serve basis till June of the academic year. Applying early enhances the opportunity of obtaining financial aid. Notably, the application for the 2024–2025 academic year has been delayed and will not be available until Dec. 2023.
Simply put, there's no earning cap to qualify for FAFSA. Factors like the enrollment year, family size, and evident financial need come into consideration. So, get started on filling out your FAFSA for the best shot at financial assistance for college education.