By Avery Boulware, Campus Carrier News Editor
The words “financial aid” may strike fear into the hearts of many students, and finding enough funds to get through school can be a major source of stress. However, the Department of Education has made several changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which helps the department decide how much aid students will recieve for school. These changes, beginning in the 2017-2018 school year, are anticipated to make the financial aid application process easier for both incoming freshman and returning college students.
The first change is that the FAFSA will be available three months earlier than it has been. Students are now able to submit after Oct. 1 rather than Jan. 1, 2017. The Department of Education has named this change “Early FAFSA.”
The second change is that the income used on the FAFSA will be from two years prior to the application year instead of just one year prior. This change is referred to as “Prior-Prior Year.” For example, the income used for the 2017-2018 school year will be from 2015.
Noemi Sarrion-Cortes, assistant director of financial aid, explained how these changes will be helpful for both incoming freshmen and returning students.
“By using earlier income data, in this case the tax return of 2015, information will be available, and it will be ready to apply for financial aid,” Sarrion-Cortes said. “So everything will be more smooth as far as the family’s planning for their finances.”
Incoming freshman can now fill out their FAFSA at the same time they are applying for colleges. This will not only help streamline the application process, but knowing how much aid they will receive will help them choose which school will best meet the needs of the student and their family. Early FAFSA will make the general application process much easier.
These changes will not only help incoming freshmen, but all college students. Now students and their families will have more time to verify their information and make other requests to financial aid offices.
“It’s going to minimize the level of verification that we might need to do from our end as the Financial Aid office when looking at your FAFSA,” Sarrion-Cortes said. “Many students are selected for verification, so having information from two years prior, that information has probably already been validated.”
Sarrion-Cortes recommends that students make sure their current 2016-2017 FAFSA is updated by using the Data Retrieval Tool (DRT).
The DRT transfers the tax return information from the IRS website into the FAFSA, which is the best way to ensure that the application has correct tax information.
“What (returning students) can do as of now is make sure that they have imported the 2015 information into the current FAFSA for the 2016-2017 school year,” Sarrion-Cortes said.