Seniors and Parents of Seniors:
Happy New Year! You are now eligible to start completion of the "Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as the FAFSA. This form will look at the earnings from 2014 and determine how much financial aid you will qualify for at the school you intend on attending. This form looks and feels similar to a 1040 tax form, and is about a 5 out of 10 on the difficulty factor for completing. The Federal Government (represented by the Georgia Student Finance Commission) administers these programs. Typically, we like to see the FAFSA done for all students attending college in the 2015-16 school year by March 1st. THis a general rule and to get a better due date, you should consult your student's college(s) Financial Aid web page on the schools' websites for a more accurate date. Here are a couple of important vocabulary terms to help in this process:
Pell Grant- This is money that is given to a student that does not require repayment. It is free money that goes toward school expenses and is reserved for the neediest of students.
Stafford Loans (Subsidized)- These are small loans that will only cover a portion of school expenses, but have the most favorable loans options. The interest on these loans is much lower than you can get at a bank and does not start accruing until the student stops going to college. No payments are due until that same time either.
Stafford Loans (Unsubsidized)- These loans will cover more of the cost (though not all of it typically) and share the characteristic of lower interest rates than banks, but payments and interest starts accruing immediately upon borrowing.
Expected Family Contribution- This is a dollar figure that the Federal Government and the college that you will attend prescribes that your family covers after the grants and Federally backed loans are subtracted. This hopefully will come from 529 savings or rich Uncle Eddie. If neither of these are an option, Parent Plus loans can be taken out from banks. Please be careful with this! If Parent Plus loans are necessary, the college you are planning on attending may be too expensive.
Award Letter- This is a document that will come in the mail or by email from the Office of Financial Aid at your college(s) that you have applied to and will contain information and a break down of the four figures listed above.
To access the FAFSA, there are a number of ways to do so. You can go through www.gacollege411.org or you can go through https://fafsa.ed.gov/. Be careful of ".com" websites that offer to help with financial aid processes. They will charge you for what you can get for FREE from the two websites listed.
Now, there is no need to feel overwhelmed at all of this! Your friends in the NOHS Guidance Office will host a Financial Aid Meeting on January 27, 2015 at 6 pm in the Fine Arts Auditorium at NOHS. This one hour of your time should give you everything that you will need.
Additional help will be available at The University of Georgia on Saturday, February 21st through College Goal Georgia. There will be financial aid professionals who will take your W2s, etc. and do your FAFSA form for you if you cannot figure out how to do it on your own. For more information on this, email Mandy Branch at mzweig@uga.edu.
Last resource is a book that I have found to be so helpful that it is a permanent link on the right side of the Guidance Blog. It is called The College Solution. It has so many insights in to the whole financial aid process that will really make you a more educated customer.
