College Financial Aid-FAFSA
If you have a teenager who’ll be heading off to college next year and will need financial aid (and these days, who doesn’t), it’s time to start applying for it. This means filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This is about as much fun as your average root canal, but it has to be done.
Their website is a great source of infomation and, these days, you can even fill out the form, sign it electronically, and submit it online. Saves a lot of time from the old days when you had to submit it via snail mail and worry about whether it would get there on time! Of course, before you can fill out the form online, you must print out and fill in the 8-page FAFSA worksheet, so it doesn’t really save you any handwriting. But having the worksheet filled in will make filling in the actual form a breeze!
The site is really a great one-stop shop where you can fill out the form, have your questions regarding financial aid answered, check on the status of the application, once it is filed, and even find the codes for the schools to which you want to send the information. It’s a great time-save over my own days of filling out FAFSA, which required trips to counselor’s offices, etc., to find all the information I needed.
Be sure to check out the deadline dates for filing for financial aid, including your state’s deadline and the deadlines of the schools your teen is interested in attending. These may differ from the federal deadline and some schools require them in the spring for the following fall semester. Missing those deadlines could mean your student could miss out on financial aid opportunities at the school itself.
Oh, and you will need your tax information, so if you haven’t filled out those nasty forms yet either…
FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, college, financial aid, teens, teenagers, parenting
February 8th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Ugh…forms. I guess they have to be done though. Helpful post.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Yes, aren’t forms just the greatest! I’d estimate that, so far, I have spent a good several months worth of my life (that I can never get back) filling out those darn things!