College Financial Aid Fog

Parents of this fall's high school seniors — avoid the fog of financial aid foolishness!  Whether you earn $50,000 or $350,000 per year your financial aid eligibility begins with the Free Application For Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. The internal calculations and numbers document that will determine your financial aid need for the 2012-2013 college enrollment year has just been released. So what does this mean? Both foggy foolishness and — after thousands of calculations — clarity! Assets and income, age of the older parent, household size, special circumstances, taxed and untaxed income, business or farm assets are some of the FAFSA variables — that may be included, reduced or excluded altogether. It's a government program that is morphing like our tax code. (Fortunately, we have yet to reach 66,000 pages of "clarifications!") The FAFSA is actually a structured system that gathers defined family financial data for the sole intent of determining a student's expected family contribution (EFC). An EFC is the amount that a student and his or her family may reasonably be expected to contribute towards the student's post-secondary educational costs for purposes of determining financial aid eligibility. Unfortunately, the form is geared for your son or daughter to complete. Also, the first time one encounters the FAFSA there tends to be some confusion, available anecdotal advice and seemingly rampant mysticism regarding its completion. This, too, characterizes me and my experience years ago with son number one and his college admission. To understand this form's importance realize that your resultant EFC will determine your eligibility to receive Federal Pell Grants, Federal Perkins Loans, Federal Work-Study opportunities, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, William D. Ford Federal Direct Loans and the Teach Grant programs.  The lower an EFC, the greater the eligibility. As my dad once said, "If you're going to play with a loaded gun, make sure it's unloaded." I say, "Know what you're doing before you do it."   That's why we develop software that allows us to predetermine a family's EFC months before the FAFSA is submitted. We're now doing 2012-2013 predeterminations. For you do-it-yourselfers, the Need Analysis Methodology for the 2012-2013 Award Year is attached for your enjoyment! Contact us for our small group educational workshops which are available as part of our educational/outreach efforts.  Interactive workshop environments can enhance the learning experiences. Forego foggy foolishness!