T-Bird Parents: Five Tips for Filling Out the FAFSA
Posted: June 28, 2017 | Author: Southern Utah University | Read Time: 2 minutes
Southern Utah University’s Parent & Family Services aims to improve the overall quality of campus life for students by keeping parents and families informed about University services. They gathered useful information to help navigate students and their parents through their college experience.
Five Tips for Parents To Help Students Fill Out the FAFSA
1. Fill it Out Early and Often
A FAFSA should be filled out once per year for every student attending college. It is the one-stop access to three types of Federal funding.
- Grants, which don’t have to be paid back
- Work study, which provides eligibility for a part-time job on campus
- Student loans
It takes about 20 minutes to complete the FAFSA. Complete the form by the middle of March for the upcoming academic year. The earlier you fill out the application, the better chance of receiving money your student doesn’t have to pay back.
2. Complete Your Taxes
Before you file your FAFSA it can make your life much easier to have your (and your dependent student’s) taxes completed. This is because three weeks after you have filed your taxes you can use the Data Retrieval Tool. This is an easy to use tool embedded into the FAFSA that will link your tax information directly from the IRS into your application, saving you pages of forms.
3. Never Pay for the FAFSA
FAFSA stands for the FREE Application for Federal Student Aid. There are scam websites that will charge you upwards of $80 or more to process your FAFSA for you. www.FAFSA.ed.gov is the only website you should use.
4. Need Help?
The FAFSA application has step by step instructions in “Help and Hints.” If you are not sure what a word means or what a question is asking, put the cursor on that spot and look to the right of the screen. There will be a box of definitions listing the meaning of various words and questions as well as listing what can qualify as an answer to that particular question. If you don’t find your answer, call SUU’s friendly Financial Aid Counselor at 435-586-7735.
5. Check In
After you have submitted your FAFSA, it is a great idea to check in with the college in May to make sure that they have received your student’s application. Sometimes a school will need supporting documentation for a student’s FAFSA.
There are many different types of financial aid available to students. This aid can come from various sources, including the Federal government, state departments and agencies as well as private organizations and donors. Learn more from the SUU Financial Aid Office.
This article was published more than 3 years ago and might contain outdated information or broken links. As a result, its accuracy cannot be guaranteed.
Tags: Financial Aid Parents
