Archive for the ‘My Fafsa’ Category
Students Can Appeal College Awards
Students Can Appeal College Awards
(Vocus/PRWEB) April 11, 2011
The college financial aid offer letters are showing up at the student’s homes at this time, and many families are shocked by what they are seeing. Most often the colleges are expecting parents and students to pay more than they desire. Sometimes they are asking them to pay above what they can afford and well above the family’s expected family contribution as calculated on their FAFSA form.
“Don’t throw in the towel just yet,” says Scott Anderson, founder and CEO of eduLaunchpad.com. “There is still more that can often be done. Now is the time to get your appeals ready,” he adds.
The appeals process is essentially negotiating with the college, but Anderson recommends you do not call it negotiating. “Colleges get a little touchy if you talk about negotiating a financial award. They seem to think that they are not big business selling a needed service,” says Mr. Anderson. Instead, colleges and universities have an appeals process.
The appeals process can take on many forms. Some schools have their own paperwork they want students to complete to start an appeal. Other schools will accept just a letter from the student. Students need to check the colleges’ websites under financial aid to find out the process for each school. Mr. Anderson recommends that regardless of the specific process, all appeals should go to a representative in the college’s financial aid office if possible. The dean or administrator may be a good choice, but the better choice is whoever is responsible for your student’s financial award. A quick phone call to the financial aid office can get you that answer.
When making an appeal to the college, keep in mind that financial aid officers are people to. If a compelling argument can be made to a stranger as to why the student’s offer should be increased, then there is a good chance you will be successful with the college. It helps if the student applied to multiple colleges and has multiple offers on the table as well. Some schools will increase their offers simply because another school had a better offer. It is also important to have multiple choices to choose from. Maybe the student’s second choice school is going to cost $ 10,000 less than the first choice school. $ 10,000 per year can often change a student’s mind.
State your case clearly and succinctly. For instance, “my wife lost her job and our income this year will be $ 40,000 less that last year’s information on the FAFSA.” Or “My mother-in-law just moved in with us and we now have to support her.” Provide whatever supporting financial information you have available, but do not include information that does not pertain to your appeal.
“The number one rule of appealing a student’s financial offer is it never hurts to ask,” says Mr. Anderson. Families need to go ahead and ask. The worst thing that can happen is the college will say no.
http://www.eduLaunchpad.com is the most advanced college search engine on the Internet. It helps students not only identify which colleges they may be interested in, but which colleges will likely be the most generous towards them as well. Scott Anderson co-founded eduLaunchpad in 2009 and has over a decade of college financial consulting experience. Contact Scott for more information on preparing students and family finances for college.
For more information contact:
Scott Anderson, 563.359.1104
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decided i dont want to attend school this fall how do i correct fafsa for spring?
Question by blo-ny: decided i dont want to attend school this fall how do i correct fafsa for spring?
iwas going to go to occ i live in buffalo andi want to wait until spring semester tosave upsome more money and try and get into there residence halls i just signed my fafsa yesterday and now its being processed what should i do to correct it to spring
Best answer:
Answer by *RuBi*
As long as you didn’t register for classes you are okay. If you did, make sure you drop the courses appropriately. The Financial Aid is for one complete year, and the funds will be there in case you decide to attend, but if you don’t it doesn’t affect you. Again just make sure you are not registered for classes, you can always make sure by calling the Financial Aid office at your college.
Good luck, and you better attend next spring K!
Add your own answer in the comments!
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Debunking the FAFSA’s Common Myths That Drive Students Away
Debunking the FAFSA’s Common Myths That Drive Students Away
To anyone going to or already at any college or community college:
It is summertime! It is the time of finding a job, going to summer school, or if you are like me, we took the summer off! What should you be doing during this time? One of the many things is to make sure you have filled out the FAFSA already! The earlier you fill it out, the more benefits are readily available to you. Now there are many common myths from students for their reason to NOT fill out a FAFSA, and I will do my best to debunk each of the myths to the best of my abilities:
1- “I live in a nice house and we are pretty well off, I do not think I would qualify for financial aid money.”
Your parents may have been well off, but with the recent economic crisis our country has been having, maybe one of your parents were laid off at work, and that would already probably qualify you for the FAFSA.
2- “I do not want to pay to apply for FAFSA, I might not even get any money anyway.”
There is a reason why FAFSA stands for “a Free Application for Federal Student Aid”. Because, it is all free! There are many one scam sites out there that require you to pay money to fill out your FAFSA, the most infamous of them is FAFSA.com, which is a scam site! Be wary with any sort of financial aid websites that require you to pay money.
3- “You have to pay back all the money you received from FAFSA back after you are done with college.”
By applying for FAFSA, you could (most likely) get the following benefits:
* FREE Money (It depends on how much you qualify and also what school you are going to, my friend got about ,000 per semester and she goes to Mt. Sac, which is a community college)
* FREE money for books ( around 0-500 a semester)
* the cost of all your classes going from whatever the current price is to FREE (At my school, Mt. Sac, the cost per unit would be for me :] )
* The price for a parking permit on your school halved (From to at Mt. Sac)
* eligibility for many Cal Grants and scholarships that only require you to FILL out the FAFSA, not necessarily having to qualify for it
The best part about financial aid from FAFSA is that you DON’T have to pay ANYTHING back! The only part of the FAFSA that you have to pay back is the loans, and that is not even part of the FAFSA. FAFSA only sends you information on loans if you check on the application that you are interested in them.
4- “It is already too late to apply, I wish someone told me about it earlier.”
The 2009-2010 School Year (July 1st, 2009 – June 30th, 2010)
To get financial aid money for this year you can already begin to fill out the FAFSA as early Janurary 2st, 2009 all the way until June 30th, 2010. That means you can apply for financial aid for the current school year throughout the entire school year! If you decide to fill out the FAFSA later in the year, they still mail you the money for the entire school semesters that you were at your school. It is still better to fill out your FAFSA early on as you get earlier access to the benefits FAFSA provides, and also priority for the State’s financial aid, which is totally different from the FAFSA, but the same free money nonetheless. If you want to see those deadlines, go to this link and scroll down to the bottom.
These are the myths that I can list on the top of my head, if you can think of another one please tell me so I can write back to you! Now that you have demythed the common myths of the FAFSA, hurry and go fill it out! In my next post, I will write about why you should go fill out a FAFSA application, but until then have a great summer! The FAFSA website is
http://www.fafsa.ed.gov
- Joshua Wu (currently attending Mt. Sac)
check out my blog at http://oysterinmypants.wordpress.com !
my daily Bible devotions are at http://joshuahwudevotions.wordpress.com !
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