22 points of light regarding the FAFSA.
1) It’s THE form required at all colleges that accept and award federal aid. (Yes, there are a few that do not utilize federal funding – that’s a topic for another day.)
2) It’s the form that provides your college financial aid officers with the information they need to go ahead and create your financial aid package.
3) The initials stand for FREE Application for Federal Student Aid.
4) Hence, it’s FREE.
5) It’s available online at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov. NOT dot com, NOT dot org, NOT dot anything else.
6) You can still get a paper version, if you really, really, really want to. But you don’t.
7) It utilizes a July to June calendar. In other words, we are in the middle of the 2011-2012 year and “New Year’s Day” is July 1, when we move to the 2012-2013 year.
8) The 2012-2013 form is available for processing on January 1, 2012.
9) It helps determine the awarding of over $150 billion in federal aid.
10) If you have your 1040 available, the form can be fairly straightforward.
11) Unless your situation is not.
12) Do not pay someone $1500 to fill the form out for you to “maximize your aid potential”. Generally, the only one receiving more aid in that situation is the preparer.
13) It’s based on your current household and your current assets.
14) But last year’s income for that household.
15) If your parents are divorced or separated, it’s based on the parent you spent the most time with in the previous year.
16) And your step-parent, if there is one in that household.
17) Don’t send notes to the federal processor. They’ll just shred ’em. Your concerns and questions should be directed to the financial aid office of the school you attend or are planning to attend.
18) Your parents saying that they won’t pay for College does NOT grant you independent status.
19) Here’s a link to a useful webinar about the FAFSA. (Useful, but 60 minutes in length)
20) Here’s a link to my favorite FAFSA video. (Enjoyable, only 5 minutes in length)
21) Here’s a link to my Facebook page – feel free to post any $$/FA questions you have.
22) After all of that, here’s a link to the actual FAFSA.
As always, I welcome your comments and questions. Please feel free to email me at info@cc4therestofus.com, call or text me at 908-403-3819, join me on Facebook on “College Counseling for the Rest of Us” and join me on Twitter at @MichaelCCR. And now on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/CCRMichael?feature=mhee.
College Counseling for the Rest of Us 
Dec 13, 2011 @ 21:45:12
Best FAFSA post ever! Thank you, Michael, for bringing sanity, reason and a fantastic sense of humor to the college application and admissions process.
Dec 13, 2011 @ 22:25:32
Thank you, Seth, for your kind words – and for all of your efforts, as well!
Dec 14, 2011 @ 07:41:08
I agree, excellent FAFSA info! Sharing with site members and followers! 🙂
Dec 14, 2011 @ 07:53:05
Thank you, Monica!
Dec 14, 2011 @ 10:52:02
Is there anything additional that you would add for returning adult students? Also, would you mind if I linked your post in my blog for adult learners? Thanks!
Dec 14, 2011 @ 11:05:38
Two quick additions for adult learners:
1) If you’re coming back in the Spring, it’s the 2011-2012 FAFSA that you want. That’s the one that’s available now.
2) If you’re an adult learner, be prepared for loans to potentially be a big part of your aid package. You don’t need to borrow “all or nothing” – often the best action to borrow “some”.
And, yes, Deb – certainly feel free to link to your blog – THANK YOU!!!
Dec 14, 2011 @ 14:15:38
Be prepared for more discussion based on Inside Higher Ed news link – http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2011/12/13/2012-budget-includes-changes-pell – I have several calls out to clarify the potentials listed in the article but it is looking to be what is stated there.
Dec 14, 2011 @ 14:30:48
Glad I’m sitting down. None of it good news, although I do understand the budget difficulties that are leading to such decisions. Do I read that correctly that the subsidization of the loans would end upon completion, but the repayment would not be starting immediately – in other words, the change is about grace period, not about payment period?
Dec 14, 2011 @ 15:29:49
Like preparing an income tax form, the federal student aid application is complicated for some. Others aren’t sure when they prepare their application if they have made a mistake – a mistake that could boot them out of the virtual line for aid. Other people may not have the time or interest in preparing this 130+ questionnaire that the current and past Secretaries of education have complained as being complex. Just like income taxes, the federal government offers two ways a student can prepare the form – either by themselves on the U.S. Dept. of Ed form OR by getting fee-based professional help from a legitimate aid application preparation service. While legitimate firms don’t charge a submission fee, they do apply a modest cost (less than $100) to ensure a student’s aid application is correctly prepared so the student receives the most financial aid possible to help make a college education more affordable. To ensure you’re getting assistance from a legitimate firm, check their Web about policies for not gaming the system, assisting low income students without charge, and client comments as well as the Better Business Bureau rating. Accuracy is essential and top-notch aid application preparers run a computer check of the 450 ways to make an error and have a professional read every answer. Some preparers have experts who speak multiple language, a service that many parents of first-generation college students find helpful.
Some college financial aid departments assist their students in applying for aid and some communities offer a one-day annual College Goal Sunday event that offers free services. But high school seniors can’t access aid experts at their colleges of choice because they haven’t been accepted. And with the average student-to-counselor ratio in the U.S. at 457:1, seniors and their families cannot expect counselors to prepare students’ aid applications. Fee-based professional aid application services can provide peace of mind to those who have little or no experience preparing the complex aid application.
While some decry the form’s long question set, it is designed to equitably share this year’s $227 billion of student aid among more than 14 million college students. All those questions provide the facts that help colleges fairly share our nation’s aid – most of which is paid for by taxpayers.
Years ago, everyone applying for college financial aid paid a submission fee. encourage everyone regardless of financial circumstances to apply for aid, the U.S. Congress shifted to all taxpayers the cost of checking for errors and sending the applications to students colleges of choice. In that political environment, the blank form was renamed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It is somewhat like saying a blank income tax form is ‘free.’
One last advantage top aid application preparers have is that they have access to the 2012-13 aid application in advance of the January 1, 2012 first day of the aid season. That means their clients can have their aid application accurately prepared with income estimates in advance and be submitted on day one to ‘save’ their place in the virtual line for aid. That means peace of mind that those students will receive the most need-based aid possible.
Prospective first-year, full-time college students can also use a college’s Net Price Calculator to learn how much aid they are eligible to receive from a particular college. The rule of thumb is that the more questions an NPC asks, the more accurate an estimate will be – fewer than 20 questions isn’t reliable. The most sophisticated (accurate) NPCs ask 30 to 40 questions and take about 8 to 12 minutes to use. Students and their families can use NPCs before applying to colleges to compare – at a minimum – free grant aid and net price. The best NPCs also determine work study, federal education loans, and military aid to show students a reliable estimate of their out-of-pocket costs.
Dec 14, 2011 @ 17:50:16
Mary:
I appreciate your comments. And I greatly appreciate your comments about the difficulty of a “one size fits all” form trying to equitably share $227 billion of student aid. The Net Price Calculator is so new that I don’t trust your data, but i do think it’s fair to say “more questions = greater accuracy”. It’ll be interesting to see how the NPC plays out in the years to come – useful tool, sales device, complete mess or combination thereof…
There is nothing wrong with utilizing a legitimate preparer as long as the student and family understand that what they are paying for is convenience and peace of mind, but that it was probably work they could have done themselves. It now becomes the $99 ASFA, instead of the FAFSA – not the worst thing in the world, but quite likely unnecessary.
The FAFSA is NOT a tax return. It is a form that includes mostly biographical information, as well as income information pulled directly from the 1040 (and the new IRS Data Retrieval may (I hope) make things even easier. The section that historically offers the greatest challenges, opportunities and uncertainty is the asset section.
I also wish you had shared that you are directly affiliated with one such preparer, instead of sticking their web address in the middle of the comments above. (I’ve edited that section)
Again, I appreciate your comments – thank you.
Michael
Dec 14, 2011 @ 20:14:06
Michael –
I am a communications consultant for Student Financial Aid Services, the nation’s largest and oldest federal aid application preparation service. I was not trying to hide that fact as I used my real email and name. There was no place in your “details” box for titles and I didn’t think to include mine in the body of my comment.
Because you and others include links in comments, I thought it was appropriate to do.
The federal student aid application asks much more than ‘biographical’ information but as many as 130 income, asset and dependency questions.
From the many FAFSA questions posted on financial aid directors listserve, Web sites, students, and by news reporters, I’ll say we disagree about how easy the current application is – especially for first-time students and their parents and those with complex financial or living circumstances.
Some of topics that challenge those applying for aid and even college financial aid officers are:
1. For parents who are divorced, which parent’s information is included on the FAFSA?
2. If a parent has remarried, is the stepparent’s information required? What if the parents have a pre-nuptial agreement stating the stepparent is not responsible for the education of his/her stepchild’s college educational expenses?
3. Are prepaid tuition savings plans required to be reported on the FAFSA? If so, are they counted as an asset for the student or the parent?
4. Are 529 Plans (college saving plans) reported as an asset of the student or parent?
5. Under the Federal Methodology (FM) need analysis formula, what are the exact earnings for a dependent student before at least $1 will be calculated toward his/her expected family contribution (EFC)?
6. If a student’s parents are married and the oldest parent is 45 years of age, is there an allowance of the parents’ assets within the FM need analysis formula? If so, what is the allowance before cash, savings and investments would begin to generate an EFC amount?
7. Are savings and investments of a parent a significant factor in the Federal Methodology (FM) for most parents when calculating the expected family contribution?
8. Are a home, car, furniture, boat and other personal items included as assets?
9. Are food stamps included on the FAFSA? What about welfare?
10. The Additional Financial Information and Untaxed Income sections of the FAFSA have 28 separate, additional questions on the FAFSA (student and parent) and can be confusing for many applicants. What is the difference between these two sections of the FAFSA application? What is Worksheet A, B & C?
These questions come up regularly in conversations between Student Financial Aid Services’ advisors and clients. Often the answer to a question are different for dependent vs. independent students. Untangling these complexities is just one reason clients repeatedly pay $80 to $100 for the company’s service, which by the way was started by a college financial aid director 20 years ago.
As for data about net price calculators (NPC) accuracy, another company I work with Student Aid Services is the leading provider of custom NPCs and has built nearly 600 of them and done extensive research and development about how to make them accurate. In addition, it has tested the free federal calculator template using 145,000 real student profiles and found it generates inaccurate EFCs and net price / aid eligibility estimates 54% of the time. These inaccuracies occur because the federal template, which about 5,000 colleges posted, doesn’t follow the federal EFC guidelines for determining need-based aid, uses merit aid questions to determine need-based aid, and is based on two-year old historical averages instead of current or future aid formulas and cost. Typically estimates from colleges, which used the free federal template to build an NPC, over estimate a student’s net price so colleges often appear less affordable than they really are.
While the federal calculator template asks fewer than 10 questions, custom and home-grown NPCs ask 30 to 40 to be able to generate reliable estimates. Unlike the ‘reflective’ federal template calculator, custom and homegrown NPCs are predictive – based on current or future aid awarding formulas – and therefore much more accurate.
The concept of a student being able to compare their aid eligibility, net price, and out-of-pocket costs among colleges of their choice before applying to colleges is a giant step forward in helping families better plan how to find and pay for an affordable education.
As colleges realize that they are not serving students or themselves well by using the federal template and switch to more reliable ones from any of the dozen NPC providers, I believe there will be a positive change in how students plan for college and how colleges recruit students.
Dec 14, 2011 @ 20:57:48
Mary:
Thank you for the full disclosure. I would love to know more about your service. But not as a promotion in the middle of the comments blog to my website. I’m selfish that way. (There actually aren’t too many prior links and most of them are to articles or relevant blog posts)
I am actually happy to see such a service at the price you suggest, as opposed to the 3 and 4 digit scams that I have seen perpetrated upon unsuspecting families. I don’t agree with your company’s choice of website address, but I admire the chutzpah.
I hope you are right about the long term benefits of the NPC, but I think you only listed reasons why the federal NPC template is badly flawed – which is a point on which you and I strongly agree. I hope you are right about NPC versions that you work with, but I will wait a couple of years before I pass judgment – not because I think your methodology would be flawed, but because I am not sure how well families will put information in, how well colleges will update and, most importantly, how well families will utilize this predictive information for proper decision making.
As for the questions you ask, they fall – by my count – into three categories – a)questions about assets, which is truly the one area of the form that can be tricky, troublesome, ‘gray’, b)questions that are not needed to complete the form but provide insight as to how the form works and/or could be used to manipulate the system or c) questions for whom the answer is in the instructions of the form.
(For what it’s worth, I would probably fire any of my FA Directors if they didn’t ace these questions, but I understand your point.)
Mary, I appreciate you continuing the dialogue with me. You and I don’t agree on how many families need assistance with the FAFSA, but I think we agree on the importance of the form and the importance of assisting families in surviving the college search process. If you are on LinkedIn, certainly feel free to connect and/or join the CCR Group.
Michael
Dec 16, 2011 @ 20:20:35
Funny as usual, Michael! I am so glad our 2 have graduated! FAFSA forms are extremely overwhelming the 1st time but the process does become easier over time. Please remind parents not to wait too long to file their FAFSA form. The colleges distribute the $ on a 1st come, 1st served basis and once the $ is gone, it’s gone. Waiting until April to file is often too late.
Dec 16, 2011 @ 21:28:11
Thank you, Dori! And yes, certainly don’t wait until April (or later). Applying when the pot is full (or fuller) is far better than applying when the pot is nearly empty. You don’t need to be first, but you do want to be towards the front. Saying that…
I would also caution families to – as best as possible – file based on accurate information obtained via your W-2 forms or, even better, your 1040. I’ve seen families try to apply in early or mid January with inaccurate guesstimates which led to inaccurate financial aid packages, which led to much confusion and angst later. If they had waited a couple of weeks, they would have provided accurate information and received a package that was not changed when the updated information came in.
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