By: Whitney Tran, Chris Ha
Are you a senior that is currently applying to colleges and worrying about how you’re going to pay for tuition after you get accepted? Thankfully, the government has created FAFSA for students who are in need of financial aid.
Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as FAFSA, is the application students fill out in order to determine their financial aid eligibilities. Most U.S. citizen students are eligible for financial aid, and can start applying now on their website at fafsa.gov.
The process for applying for FAFSA is simple. If you don’t already have a FAFSA account, sign up as soon as possible because it could take a couple days for your account to be verified. Once you receive an email confirmation saying your account has been verified, have your parents or guardians start the application with you. FAFSA asks a lot of personal questions that may need an adult to help answer. Before you start, make sure you are applying for the right year, which in this case is for 2019-2020.
The application could take a while depending on how much information you want to provide. I recommend providing as much information as you can to make your application more eligible for financial aid, but keep in mind that inaccurate information can make your application invalid.
For the financial section, I recommend linking your parents’ IRS information rather than plugging in their tax information manually to save time. Also, make sure you are filling out the right information for the right person because FAFSA tends to ask information from both the student and the adult. Luckily, you are also able to revise your application before the due date if you catch a mistake on your application.
If you have not started applying for financial aid yet, I highly recommend starting now. Although it is not due until June 30, 2019, a solid start on it will leave you with less stress and more time to focus on your college applications.