Seniors and parents, January 1st has finally come. Yes, the holidays were great, and celebrating the New Year is always a blast…but the biggest event to celebrate is that the FAFSA is finally live. OK, so completing the FAFSA isn’t the most fun activity in the world, but it is important. In order to receive any financial aid for college, students and their parents must complete the FAFSA online. The website is www.fafsa.ed.gov and the very first word in FAFSA is “free”. There is a FAFSA.com out there, but there is no need to do this one. That website will charge you and offers nothing more than the real FAFSA. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid will use the family’s previous tax returns to estimate how much a family can afford to pay for college and how much aid they can receive. Government aid in forms of grants, loans, and scholarships can potentially come from completing the FAFSA.
In the simplest of terms, a family will complete the FAFSA, and the system will eventually generate an EFC, expected family contribution. This is what they believe the family can afford out of pocket for the student’s education. This number is then sent to colleges, and colleges will subtract it from their cost of attendance. The difference is the student’s need. Some colleges will meet this need completely, others will not meet it much at all, and others will be somewhere in the middle.
The FAFSA is available online right now, and really should be completed soon. There is no need to wait until the new tax returns are available, as last year’s are accepted and often some schools will have deadlines that are pretty soon. You can estimate what the numbers will be for this year, using last year's figures. Then, once the current year figures are in, you can send the updated ones in to the FAFSA. Some families do not want to deal with spending the time completing the FAFSA. This is definitely a family decision, which I always respect, but I encourage all families to complete the FAFSA, at least prior to freshmen year. You never know if you may qualify for financial aid, including grants or scholarships, which is free money…and we all can benefit from free money! So enough reading, and I know you have celebrated the holidays enough, so get your paperwork together, and go tackle the FAFSA!!
-Joseph D. Korfmacher, MA
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