What is the FASFA: Your Tool to Free Money for Education
Available in both a paper form or online through the FASFA website (see link below), the federal assistance application is the standard way to apply for both federal financial programs such as Stafford loans or Pell grants, and state financial aid and grants. Most colleges and universities also use the FASFA to determine eligibility for school level educational financial assistance.
According to the US Office of Federal Student Aid, approximately 80 Billion Dollars is made available to students through the Federal Financial Aid Program. Unfortunately, if an individual does not take the time to fill out the FASFA completely and accurately, they will lose out on financial assistance; he or she will be sacrificing free money. Fortunately, filling out the FASFA should only take about an hour if the student is fully prepared with tax, financial, school, and family information. Thanks to the Internet, the FASFA can be completely filled out and signed for online.
If you are looking for the most accurate and speedy way to complete a FASFA, the Department of Education recommends the online version. The online version provides immediate error checking and information verification. Since the Department of Education processes over 14 million applications annually, there is little room for error, and incomplete forms are rejected immediately. It would be a shame to miss out on hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, due to a simple mistake.
Remember, if you or a child are heading to college soon, financial assistance begins with the FASFA. If you make mistakes or fail to meet deadlines, you could be missing out on free money.
Published by Chris Matier - Featured Contributor in Technology
Chris Matier has lived in Northern Colorado for over 15 years. In that time, he has earned a Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree, started a family, and began a career. During the day, he is a professiona... View profile
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12 Comments
Post a CommentGood article. Heads up: Your title needs a bit of editing.
Great article Chris, you should get plenty of visitors here consistently.
Thanks for the information-we are only a year away from our oldest going to college. This will be a wonderful help-I'm bookmarking it!
Good Article about FAFSA a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford college without it.
Maxwell- I think it sounds like FASFA when most people try to pronounce it. People must search under the term "FASFA" for Google to have an auto correct on it. They don't even ask if you meant FAFSA, which I find odd. They just redirect the search.
Good article but I like how this writer misspelled 'FAFSA' as FASFA' and AC features it on the front page.
I did a Google search under the misspelled word - Google not only automatically corrected the spelling but it sent me to the correct article. Try it. Use the word FASFA and Google automatically assumes people are searching for FAFSA.
Use the title, in quotes, with the word spelled correctly and it sends readers to this article - or am I missing something about that? I don't know if it affects search results, although (of course) I'm not saying that misspelling is desirable in a title. I've done it; drove me nutty till I got it fixed.
The newest form of FAFSA requires students to be independent for the purposes of filing past a certain age.
Yeah, it's FAFSA, not FASFA.
You really should have proof-read this, it's FAFSA, not FASFA.
Great article, but if you want people to be able to find your article via a search, you should change it to the correct acronym: FAFSA, not FASFA.
My son got essentially a full ride after we filled it out. It's worth the agony. Just don't forget your PIN. They are sticklers for that!!