The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is the universal application for all types of federal student aid that you must complete and submit each year in order to become eligible for government financial assistance.
- The good news is that the FAFSA is relatively easy to fill out as long as you are willing to take the time to prepare yourself before you go ahead and actually complete the form.
This means that you should make the effort to accumulate all of the necessary documentation and other paperwork that is needed to complete the FAFSA before you go ahead and fill out the application. Doing this will save you an enormous amount of time, and it should prevent you from taking more than about an hour or two to complete.
The following documentation and information is going to be needed when you fill out your FAFSA.
- Institutional codes for each school you plan on applying to
- Social security number
- Driver’s license
- Alien registration card, or permanent resident card if not a United States citizen
- W-2 forms and Tax returns
- If still dependent—parents’ tax documents
- If married—spouse’s tax documents
- Untaxed income statements that are current (welfare, veteran’s benefits, etc.
- Bank statements
- Investment records and statements
- Mortgage documentation
- Business and farm documentation
Once you have this documentation and information by your side the actual process of completing the FAFSA should be relatively simple, and straightforward. Before you can actually go ahead and begin to complete the form you must first locate a copy of this application.
Getting a Copy of the FAFSA and Acquiring your PIN
You have a choice to make in regard to whether or not you want to complete the written version of the FAFSA, or its online counterpart. It is highly recommended that you choose to fill out the online form, as the written application will take you longer to complete, and will require that you take the time to submit it via conventional mail.
The Hard Copy
If for some reason you decide to complete the written form, you can get your hands on a copy by requesting one be sent to you at fafsa.ed.gov, or by calling 1-800-4-FED-AID.
You can also print one out yourself at federalstudentaid.ed.gov, or grab a copy at either your secondary school’s guidance department, or at your college’s financial aid department.
The Online FAFSA
When you are ready to complete the online version of the FAFSA you need to go to the website fafsa.ed.gov. This is the official FAFSA website, and by following the instructions that are provided on the site you can go ahead and complete your application entirely online.
Before you can officially submit your form you must get your PIN. Your PIN is a not that much different than the number you would use to access a personal bank account, or other important account, and is simply a small number that serves as an indicator of your personal authenticity. It is recommended that you get your PIN before you begin to fill out your FAFSA—you can do so at the website pin.ed.gov.
Completing the FAFSA
Now that you know how to access the FAFSA, it is important to understand that you should be able to qualify for federal student aid before you begin to fill out the application. This means that you should be able to satisfy the litany of federal student aid eligibility requirements that were explicitly provided in another article that is found on this site. These are not that difficult to satisfy, and by going through them beforehand you should be able to avoid any unexpected surprises.
The FAFSA is now split up into seven major sections, and each one has its own purpose, questions, and required information that you must submit. I believe the online version makes it so that you must progress through these in a sequential order, although you can always go back and make edits once you have successfully completed the application in its entirety.
1-Personal Information: Basic personal information such as your name, address, date of birth, and social security number will be asked in this section. Other questions will also be provided in order to determine your eligibility for federal student aid. These will include questions in regard to your academic progress, your citizenship, and whether or not you may have an illegal drug conviction on your record.
2-School Selection: You will be asked to provide ten schools that you are interested in applying to in this section. Other questions that you must provide answers to will involve choosing your housing plan, determining your enrollment status, and choosing whether or not you want to be considered for both work-study, and federal student loan programs.
3-Dependency Status: This section will provide you with a list of questions in order to determine your dependency status. If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions you may be considered as an “independent” for the upcoming school year.
- Are you a veteran of the United States armed forces?
- Are you currently serving on active duty in the United States armed forces for purposes other than training?
- Are you currently married
- Were you born before January 1, 1987?
- Will you be enrolled in a master’s, or doctorate program at the start of the school year?
4-Parent Information: This section will require that you provide information about your parents, and family household. Basic information such as the name of your parents, their marital status, and social security numbers will be required, as well as other data about your family, including the size of your household, and the number of individuals from your family that will be attending postsecondary institutions during the upcoming school year.
5-Financial Information: If you are determined to be an independent you won’t have to provide financial information about your parents. If you are still a dependent you will have to provide financial information about both yourself, and your parents, and the questions in this section will mostly be about your current income, assets, and last year’s tax returns.
6-Review Application and Submit: You have almost completely finished your FAFSA! In this section you have the opportunity to review, print out, and save your application. You will also have to agree to a legal statement that will serve as an official confirmation that the information that you provided during the completion of your FAFSA was in-fact truthful, and accurate, and that you won’t utilize your federal student aid for anything else besides education-related purposes. By providing your social security number and PIN you should be able to go right ahead and officially submit your application—click submit and you should almost be done!
7-Confirmation: Once you have submitted your application in the above section you will then be taken to a confirmation page where a random confirmation number, and data release number will be provided. Once you have successfully been given this page that is pretty much it—you have completed the FAFSA!
The Student Aid Report and Relevant Deadlines
A Student Aid Report, or SAR will be generated once you have finished completing your FAFSA. This SAR should contain a listing of all the information that you provided during the completion of your application, your EFC, as well as your eligibility status for certain types of federal student aid.
Review your SAR as soon as possible for errors and other inaccuracies, as it should be simple to go back and correct such things if you completed the online form. The SAR will be sent to your home location via conventional mail, and you should expect it to take about 2-3 weeks if you filled out the online version, and about 4-6 weeks if you completed the written version. A copy should also be sent to the email address you provided during the completion of your application.
- The earliest you can go ahead and complete the FAFSA is on January 1, the latest you can submit one is set at June 30 for the upcoming school year.
I always recommend to students that it is better to submit your FAFSA as early as possible if you want to improve your chances at getting the most amount of aid you possibly can, as most financial aid is given on a first-come, first-serve basis.
That essentially wraps-up how to complete the FAFSA, and just remember that you must fill out a new application for each year that you are planning on attending college, although by logging in to the official FAFSA website you can make the process go by much faster if you are willing to use the information that you provided during the completion of the previous year’s application.
