{"id":1304,"date":"2014-01-20T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janice-campbell.com\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2015-08-31T21:52:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T21:52:51","slug":"financial-aid-you-wont-get-it-unless-you-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/financial-aid-you-wont-get-it-unless-you-apply\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial Aid: You Won&#8217;t Get it Unless You Apply"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1307\" style=\"margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px;\" alt=\"Dante by Luca Signorelli, c. 1500\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.janice-campbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/dante-luca.jpg?resize=189%2C185\" width=\"189\" height=\"185\" \/>Do you have a teen who is filling out college applications? If so, there&#8217;s one more application to add to the list. It&#8217;s the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/fafsa.ed.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">Free Application for Federal Student Aid<\/a><\/strong>, informally known as the <a href=\"https:\/\/fafsa.ed.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>FAFSA<\/strong><\/a>, and if your teen wants to be eligible for federal financial aid, this form is where you start.<\/p>\n<p>The FAFSA\u00a0gives you access to the largest source of financial aid to pay for college or career school, and is used by\u00a0many states, colleges, and private financial aid providers\u00a0to determine your eligibility for state and school aid. In other words, <strong>if you want free money, you must fill out this form<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h4>What happens after you fill out the FAFSA?<\/h4>\n<p>Once you have filled out the form, it is sent to the colleges of your choice, and using the information on the form, colleges that accept your student will draft financial aid offers to fit the student&#8217;s need. These offers will arrive in the form of a letter that spells out how much the school can offer in grants, loans, and work study. Each college will offer a package that covers your federally-calculated\u00a0Financial Need. This is defined as the difference between the cost of attendance (COA) at a school and your Expected Family Contribution (EFC).<\/p>\n<p>An important point to remember is that while COA varies from school to school, <strong>your EFC does not change based on the school you attend<\/strong>. This should help to free you from having to make a financially-based decision on which college to attend.<\/p>\n<p>Example, if your EFC is $1000 and your student has been accepted to three colleges.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">College A has a COA of $40,000 a year;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">College B has a COA of $28,000 a year;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">College C has a COA of $12,000 a year.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>No matter which school your student attends, you will be expected to pay your EFC of $1000. Each college will send you an offer of aid for the difference between that amount and the COA. So you should get offers for $39,000, $27,000, and $11,000.<\/p>\n<p>You look at the letters, weigh the balance of grants, loans, and work-study, and start making making decisions about which college to choose. If you are offered loans, it doesn&#8217;t hurt to contact the financial aid office to ask for work study instead. You and your students will be blessed by anything you can do to avoid the burden of debt.<\/p>\n<p>In our family&#8217;s experience, <strong>private colleges<\/strong> ended up being a much better deal than public universities, and I&#8217;ve heard other families attest to the same thing. One of our sons chose an eye-poppingly expensive private school, but received a full ride of grants and scholarships for the two years he attended (he had earned an Associates degree before applying). The public school to which he had also applied had much lower tuition, but offered one paltry grant and an array of loans. One of our other sons mostly worked his way through a public university, but got to the point where he just needed to finish and ended up taking a loan, which was not ideal.<\/p>\n<p>You can learn a lot more about financial aid for college students at\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/studentaid.ed.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">studentaid.ed.gov<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h4>What you need to fill out the FAFSA<\/h4>\n<p>Fill out the application at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fafsa.ed.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/fafsa.ed.gov\/<\/a>. It will cost you nothing, and it is fairly easy to follow. You may also fill out a paper form or download a PDF to fill out, but this is not recommended, as it takes more time and has a higher chance for error. \u00a0The FAFSA website explains that you must create a secure PIN, and have the following items available so you can enter the information.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your Social Security Number<\/li>\n<li>Your Alien Registration Number (if you are not a U.S. citizen)<\/li>\n<li>Your most recent federal income tax returns, W-2s, and other records of money earned. (<strong>Note:<\/strong>\u00a0You may be able to transfer your federal tax return information into your FAFSA using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.)<\/li>\n<li>Bank statements and records of investments (if applicable)<\/li>\n<li>Records of untaxed income (if applicable)<\/li>\n<li>A Federal Student Aid PIN to sign electronically. (If you do not already have one, visit\u00a0<a>www.pin.ed.gov<\/a>\u00a0to obtain one.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are a\u00a0<a>dependent student<\/a>, then you will also need most of the above information for your parent(s).\u00a0If you or your parents have not completed your taxes yet, you can estimate your income and other tax return information, and then correct your application after you have filed your taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Although you have to fill out the form each year, the site saves your basic information, so the process is quicker for the second, third, and fourth years of school.<\/p>\n<h4>When is the FAFSA due?<\/h4>\n<p>The short answer is to do it as soon as possible after January 1st. You want to have your application in the hands of the college admissions counselor before any deadlines are close, and before all their scholarship money has been offered.<\/p>\n<p>To be considered for federal student aid for the 2014-2015 award year, you can complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) <strong>between January 1, 2014 and midnight Central Time, June 30, 2015.<\/strong> Any corrections or updates must be submitted by midnight Central Time, September 19, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>However, many states and colleges have earlier deadlines for applying for state and institutional financial aid. You can find your state\u2019s deadline at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fafsa.gov\/deadlines\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.fafsa.gov\/deadlines<\/a>. Check with your college about its deadlines.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.everyday-education.com\/catalog\/tme-js-deal.shtml\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1198\" alt=\"Homeschool through High School with Confidence Sale\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.janice-campbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tme-js-special.jpg?resize=154%2C178\" width=\"154\" height=\"178\" \/><\/a>Next week, we&#8217;ll take a look at the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.janice-campbell.com\/2014\/01\/27\/what-kinds-of-financial-aid-are-available\/\" target=\"_blank\"> types of aid available<\/a>. Meanwhile, remember that if you want to be eligible for federal aid, <strong>you must fill out the FAFSA<\/strong> whether you think you will qualify or not. If you don&#8217;t fill it out, you definitely won&#8217;t get federal aid and probably not any of the other aid tied to it, so <strong>do it<\/strong>. It&#8217;s well worth the effort.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, don&#8217;t forget that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.everyday-education.com\/catalog\/tme-js-deal.shtml\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Transcripts Made Easy <\/em>and<em> Get a Jump Start on College<\/em><\/a> can help you navigate these years with ease. You can do it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you have a teen who is filling out college applications? If so, there&#8217;s one more application to add to the list. It&#8217;s the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, informally known as the FAFSA, and if your teen wants&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[291],"tags":[1173,350,444,567,576,632,763,884,890,1154,1025,1172,1102],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school","tag-and-financial-aid","tag-application","tag-college","tag-fafsa","tag-financial-aid","tag-grant","tag-loan","tag-private-college","tag-public-university","tag-records","tag-testing","tag-transcripts","tag-work-study"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.3 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Financial Aid: You Won&#039;t Get it Unless You Apply &#8226; Doing What Matters with Janice Campbell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/financial-aid-you-wont-get-it-unless-you-apply\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Financial Aid: You Won&#039;t Get it Unless You Apply\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do you have a teen who is filling out college applications? 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The U.S. Department of Education (the courteous provider of most of this information) awards about $150 billion every year to help millions of students pay for college. This federal student aid is awarded in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;High School, College, and Alternatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"High School, College, and Alternatives","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/high-school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Beim Notar by Josef Wagner-H\u00f6henberg (1870\u20131939)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.janice-campbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/299px-Josef_Wagner-H%C3%B6henberg_Beim_Notar.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1792,"url":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/college-admissions-knowledge-is-power\/","url_meta":{"origin":1304,"position":1},"title":"College Admissions: Knowledge Is Power!","author":"Janice Campbell","date":"April 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Getting in to a college isn't terribly difficult if you have decent grades, a professional-looking transcript, and a reasonable work ethic (if all else fails, most community colleges admit anyone who is willing to pay for classes). However, if you want to get into a particular college, there are some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;High School, College, and Alternatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"High School, College, and Alternatives","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/high-school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1813,"url":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/college-from-home-sure-at-least-a-few-classes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1304,"position":2},"title":"College From Home? Sure . . . At Least a Few Classes","author":"Janice Campbell","date":"October 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The internet has changed a lot of things. Some for the better, and some not. One good thing is the proliferation of ways to learn online for free or nearly free. College has become insanely expensive, so getting a head start on college from home by taking free online classes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;High School, College, and Alternatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"High School, College, and Alternatives","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/high-school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1807,"url":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/new-transcripts-made-easy-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":1304,"position":3},"title":"New Transcripts Made Easy Review","author":"Janice Campbell","date":"August 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Cindy from Curriculum Choice (a delightful blog) has posted a very nice review of Transcripts Made Easy. I'm grateful for it, and happy to know that it's still helping to calm those homeschool-through-high-school fears. High school transcripts and records really aren't as hard you might think. I like to plan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;High School, College, and Alternatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"High School, College, and Alternatives","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/high-school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everyday-education.com\/Cover-prototype_Kabel-2-27w.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1799,"url":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/free-is-good-for-college-textbooks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1304,"position":4},"title":"Free is Good for College Textbooks","author":"Janice Campbell","date":"June 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"For many families, the cost of college textbooks comes as a shock. Paying $100 or so for a book your student will use for a mere 18 weeks seems entirely foolish. For families whose high school students are getting a jump start on college from home, it can be a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Home School&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Home School","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/homeschool\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everyday-education.com\/images\/JScover-04-07web.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1805,"url":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/how-to-calculate-on-a-high-school-transcript\/","url_meta":{"origin":1304,"position":5},"title":"How to Calculate +\/- on a High School Transcript","author":"Janice Campbell","date":"August 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"How to calculate quality points for plus and minus grades on the high school transcript- here's a list.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;High School, College, and Alternatives&quot;","block_context":{"text":"High School, College, and Alternatives","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/category\/high-school\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65lfN-l2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}