For your information….
What is the FAFSA?
For students and
parents, many know they must complete the FAFSA but have no idea what is or how
it is used. We often hear students say,
“I didn’t get FAFSA on my award?” So it’s important to understand that it is
more than “the Pell grant form” or “how you get a loan.”
The FAFSA is the
Free Application for Federal Student Aid and will be completed by going to
www.fafsa.gov.
·
FAFSA completion is required for a student to receive any
federal aid (Federal Pell, Federal work-study, Federal loans, etc.)
·
The results of the FAFSA are used by many colleges and
universities for their need-based aid.
·
The FAFSA results are also used for one of the eligibility
requirements for the HELP grant, one of our state aid programs.
·
Many private foundations, such as the Bill Gates Foundation, use
the FAFSA results as well.
When should a student complete the FAFSA? For the school year 2017-18, you can
begin filing the FAFSA on October 1, 2016 and can complete the FAFSA until June
30, 2018. Students should complete the
FAFSA soon after it becomes available on Oct. 1. Filling out the FAFSA as early
as possible can help the student get a jump on other financial aid applications
(state or institutional aid) that may have early or priority deadlines. It also
will give the student more information earlier about the financial aid for
which they might qualify and will help them make an informed decision about
which college is the best financial fit.
Create
an FSA ID. When
students start the FAFSA on the web application, the student (and parent) will
need to create an FSA ID which includes a username and password. The FSA ID may
be used to electronically sign the FAFSA. When creating the FSA ID, the student
(and parent) will provide their SSN, legal name and date of birth, and when
possible, they will also provide their own email address. Having an email is not required but makes
retrieval of username and password easier if the student forgets them. (Parents
will create their own account using a different email address and create their
own username and password).
For
an overview on ‘how to create a FSA ID’, you might watch this short video:
FAFSA
questions:
·
Is
a student independent or dependent? Working with high school seniors at FAFSA completion
days, most students will be dependent.
However, there WILL be independent students. If a student is independent, then the only
information used on the FAFSA is the student’s income and asset
information. If the student is
dependent, they will use the parent’s income and assets along with the
student’s income and assets.
For an overview on ‘dependency
status’, you might watch this short video:
·
Who
is the parent? It is not always
intuitive who the parent is for FAFSA completion.
For an overview on ‘who is my
parent’, you might watch this short video:
·
How
many are in the household? Again, the FAFSA rules may count household size
differently than what you might expect.
-
You count in the household:
o Student
– even if student does not live with parents
o Student’s
parents (step-parent included if parent remarried)
o Parents’
other children (even if they do not live with parents if (a) your
parents provide more than half of their support between July 1, 2017 and June
30, 2018 or (b) the children could answer “no” to every
dependency question.
o Other
people if they now live with your parents, your parents provide more than half
of their support and your parents will continue to provide more than half of
their support between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018.
The IRS Data Retrieval Tool:
For
students entering 2017-18, the student and parent will use 2015 income tax
information. On October 1, most
families will have completed their 2015 tax returns which will help simplify
filing the FAFSA. In most cases, you can transfer income data directly from the IRS website to the
FAFSA, making it easier to accurately complete the FAFSA. This process is called the IRS Data Retrieval
Tool (IRS DRT). It will transfer the
student and parent income tax data directly from the IRS to the online FAFSA.
After the FAFSA - The Student Aid Report (SAR): Once the FAFSA is processed, the student will receive a SAR that
contains the data that was entered on the FAFSA either by email or by postal
mail.
The State Grant Application:
After you complete
the FAFSA, you will submit the MS Office of Student Financial Aid application
which can be linked from the FAFSA confirmation page. Please review the MS Financial Aid page for
more information on the state grants, MTAG, MESG, and HELP.
