FAFSA Finally Here!

Seniors and parents, January 1st has finally come. Yes, the holidays were great, and celebrating the New Year is always a blast…but the biggest event to celebrate is that the FAFSA is finally live. OK, so completing the FAFSA isn’t the most fun activity in the world, but it is important. In order to receive any financial aid for college, students and their parents must complete the FAFSA online. The website is www.fafsa.ed.gov and the very first word in FAFSA is “free”. There is a FAFSA.com out there, but there is no need to do this one. That website will charge you and offers nothing more than the real FAFSA. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid will use the family’s previous tax returns to estimate how much a family can afford to pay for college and how much aid they can receive. Government aid in forms of grants, loans, and scholarships can potentially come from completing the FAFSA.

In the simplest of terms, a family will complete the FAFSA, and the system will eventually generate an EFC, expected family contribution. This is what they believe the family can afford out of pocket for the student’s education. This number is then sent to colleges, and colleges will subtract it from their cost of attendance. The difference is the student’s need. Some colleges will meet this need completely, others will not meet it much at all, and others will be somewhere in the middle.

The FAFSA is available online right now, and really should be completed soon. There is no need to wait until the new tax returns are available, as last year’s are accepted and often some schools will have deadlines that are pretty soon. You can estimate what the numbers will be for this year, using last year's figures. Then, once the current year figures are in, you can send the updated ones in to the FAFSA. Some families do not want to deal with spending the time completing the FAFSA. This is definitely a family decision, which I always respect, but I encourage all families to complete the FAFSA, at least prior to freshmen year. You never know if you may qualify for financial aid, including grants or scholarships, which is free money…and we all can benefit from free money! So enough reading, and I know you have celebrated the holidays enough, so get your paperwork together, and go tackle the FAFSA!!


-Joseph D. Korfmacher, MA

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Admissions Report & the Importance of Crafting the College List

March Madness most commonly refers to that pretty big NCAA basketball tournament that catches our attention for a few weeks, but it can also describe this time of year in college admissions. The last two weeks of March is generally when most colleges send out their decision letters to anxious, yet hopeful seniors, dreaming about celebrating acceptances to their top choices. However, over the years, as more and more students apply to colleges with the ease of the Common Application and Coalition, not to mention an increase of international students, many colleges have become much more competitive. Schools that would have been a slam dunk admit in years past, are becoming as tough to get into as sinking a half court shot. Because of this, and looking towards the future, knowing that it will most likely continue to become more and more selective, it is essential to find colleges that are less selective, but still have everything you need in a college to be happy. When crafting a college...
Read more

Introducing Going Merry - Making College Scholarships Easier

Hey Everyone, A big part of the college process for most families is finding a way to pay for the cost of tuition, room and board, meals, books, travel, and other expenses. If the total cost of college isn't terrifying enough, the search and application process for scholarships certainly is daunting, to say the least. Most colleges will offer merit scholarships to students just for applying to college and getting accepted, but for the majority of students, there is still a gap that needs to be met, and financial aid does not usually cover all of that. So because of that, most students are forced to sift through hundreds of outside scholarships, find out which ones they are eligible for and then spend hours completing the scholarship application, often requiring a ton of personal information and writing samples. This hard work often can result in receiving free money to use toward's college expenses, but in general, the entire process is arduous, time consuming, and students...
Read more

ACT & SAT Updates

Hey Everyone! With Thanksgiving only two days away, the Christmas music will be starting in just three days. It is hard to believe, but we can now see the end of the college application season, with January 1st being one of the biggest college deadlines. January through the end of April will be filled with a lot of joy as acceptance letters roll in, and seniors begin making their plans for collegiate life in the fall of 2018. January, into the early months of spring also mean another thing in the world of college admissions: the cycle begins again for current juniors, as this will be the time the majority of juniors begin taking the standardized college entrance exams: ACT and SAT. Although a growing number of colleges are going test-optional , which means they do not require (really!) SAT or ACT scores to be considered for admissions or scholarship money, the vast majority of colleges still use scores as a major part of the admissions process. Below, I will first give you a f...
Read more