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The application deadline for FAFSA early consideration this year is May 1.
Director of Financial Aid at Michigan Tech Alyssa Fredin talked about why filling out the FAFSA for early consideration is important. (0:42-1:23) (3:18-4:20 cut up).
“So it stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and it’s an application that students, and their families- parents- should that be necessary, fill out and access federal funding for secondary education. It can also provide access to state and institutional funding that require the FAFSA to be filed; and it’s really like the tool you use as a student, and your family, to maximize financial opportunities and assistance to reduce a school’s like “sticker cost”, and bring that down to net price. Early consideration allows you to be considered for the maximum of financial aid opportunities, which then allows you potentially to receive from a financial aid package from all the schools you’re interested in too.” – Director of Financial Aid at Michigan Tech, Alyssa Fredin.
She recommends that seniors in high school fill out the application when it’s released, which is usually October 1. This year, it may be released in December, which is is when Fredin recommends to have the application completed when it’s released in October.
FAFSA deadlines are going through changes this year, so please keep a look out for date changes from colleges and universities.
FAFSA typically available until after your spring semester of your first year of college.
“You can submit your FAFSA electronically through studentaid.gov. It has a requirement that parents and students have a FSA ID, that’s your electronic signature, and then it walks you through the process of parent data, student data, and then assets and things like that and it just walks you through that whole process, making sure you fill it all in; and then you have a spot where you fill in what schools you’re interested in, you can list up to 10, and then that information gets sent to all of those schools to get back your financial aid package. And then if you’re interested in more [schools], you can go back and make a correction and take some schools off once they’ve already received it, and add additional schools. That’s not uncommon.” – Director of Financial Aid at Michigan Tech, Alyssa Fredin.
Fredin encourages everyone to fill out the FAFSA, because people simply don’t know for sure what kind of financial aid they can get. Each package is different for each institution and state, so it is possible you could get financial aid you didn’t know about.
Fill out your FAFSA here.
