“Filling out the 10 eye-crossing pages of the 2015-16 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the most important application for need-based college financial aid, may not seem like a fun adventure in Super Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom. But hidden among its 103 questions are hints that, if followed correctly, can dramatically increase your need-based aid and possibly rescue your dreams of an affordable college education.” …
http://time.com/money/3654485/more-financial-aid-fafsa/?xid=yahoo_money
No real surprises to denizens of this forum. And way over dramatized - 10 eye-crossing pages indeed. The forms and online software tell you where to get the information.
It’s not a bad article - better than many on the subject. The only thing is, the headline makes it sound a lot sexier than it is — the truth is, these tips won’t really yield much in the way of extra money for most students. The other thing is, I wonder if there is actual evidence that “a growing number” of colleges pay attention to the listing order for aid purposes.
Is that last paragraph true? I would like to see some real data on this.
The author of that article has posted here on CC asking questions for research purposes. She may lurk too and there are threads discussing the subject of the last paragraph. I don’t think there is any real data, schools wouldn’t reveal it anyway, just speculation.
How true is #4? I put that both me and my ex-husband are college grads, but now that I think about it, I’m not sure my ex ever finished a 4 year degree. I probably should have put “high school” for him. Would that have made a big difference? Should I try to amend the FAFSA?
What a confusing thread title.
Expect many to now ask , " why FAFSA isn’t giving them more money.?"
These aren’t really tips on getting more money from the FAFSA; they are simply telling you to fill out the form correctly. Do adults really need to be told to say “some college” if they only have…you know, some college? Does anyone actually fill out FAFSA on paper anymore?
I also don’t think it’s necessarily good policy to significantly spend down your emergency cash reserve to pay bills before you file, particularly if the emergency reserve is in the parents’ names (which it likely is). Unless it is truly large, the amount you pay is unlikely to significantly lower your EFC - but what if you get into a genuine emergency before you can rebuild it? Parental assets are only assessed at something like 5.6% so the amount in savings would need to be enormous before spending some would make sense (and even so, even if it was like - $100,000, for example - it still would make more sense not to spend it down and just set some aside to offset the amount of tuition, yes?)
@chris17mom - unlikely. If colleges wanted to offer significant merit aid for first-generation students, they would probably ask a question about it on the application, not rely on FAFSA.
I do wonder if first gen is perhaps a tipping point at some schools though.
My daughters college, met 100% of need as defined by FAFSA EFC, although we did verify every year as well.
First gen is already indicated on your admission app. Do schools actually give more money because of it? Maybe, but I’ve not heard it. Also, kudos to emerald, none of the schools that admitted my D came close to meeting the EFC. The state schools were the WORST! Unless you consider $27,000 /year in parent loans as actual aid…
I’m not saying the schools owe me anything, but at least they could be truthful in how they describe their packages.
Last night I attended a financial aid night at our HS given by folks from a local JC. They said that next year, the government is stopping the practice of letting all colleges see what other schools you list. And that absolutely the colleges are using your list to adjust their awards.
Were you told by college financial aid administrators that colleges are absolutely using your FAFSA list to adjust awards? I work in financial aid, and I can tell you that the vast majority of aid offices have award policies that are static - they have policies that are applied across the board - and they are too busy trying to do their jobs to be trying to read between the lines of how schools are listed on the aid document. That is not to say that some schools do not do this - they do - but it’s not all that many, and very few students need to even worry about this.