College application season, and therefore financial aid application season, is in full swing. Filling out various scholarship, grant, and financial aid applications can get complicated, so financial services company Sallie Mae, which specializes in education, has released tips to help students make sense of the paperwork.
Sallie Mae’s research shows 20% of undergraduate students and their families did not submit FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, forms last year. Half of them didn’t complete the form because they didn’t know about it or they didn’t think they would qualify for aid. Sallie Mae’s 1-2-3 approach to aid recommends applying for grants, scholarships, and other “free money” first, then look at federal loans, and lastly, look at private loans.
A few hours should be dedicated to filling out the FAFSA, and the process can be expedited by transferring private financial data from their IRS tax forms directly into the FAFSA. Other steps can make the process faster: get your supporting financial and personal documents, such as driver’s licenses, tax returns, W-2 forms, bank statements, and investment information, ready ahead of time. Check your state’s filing deadline to make sure you submit your forms on time. Finally, though the form requires the most recent tax filing information, applicants can submit last year’s tax information to start the process then update it when new information is available.
For detailed explanations, Sallie Mae’s website features how-to videos on what to do prior to filling out the FAFSA, the proper way to do it, and what to do once the form has been filled out.
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