FAFSA Question, 2 students, each with their own ID but does the parent ID stay the same?

Paying for College
1

We filed senior college kid’s FAFSA this past spring semester and now we have a senior high school kid who is applying to colleges and will file her FAFSA October 1st. I realize she needs her own FAFSA ID but will we just use the same parent ID? Are there directions that link the two different kids to our one parent account? This “should” be much easier because we already used the DRT so there should be no changes to the parent account other than to update assets at the time the new kid files, right?

Also, when senior college kid applied to college 3 years ago, other colleges could see his FAFSA schools but I think I read here that’s no longer the case so we don’t have to worry about the order we list schools, is this true?

As always, thank you so much in advance for your help.

2

Yes…the parent uses the same FSA ID. Kids each have their own.

Since your 2015 taxes are already done, you can link to the IRS DRT for kiddo 2 when you complete her FAFSA.

3

Thanks thumper, at least one thing will be easy about this kid applying to college.

Do you know if it’s true that other schools can no longer see where else she is applying by her FAFSA?

Thanks again and thanks for all of your hard work on this forum for parents like me who read and read but seldom post. We are out here learning lots from you!

4

Other schools can no longer see where you send your FAFSA.

But there are state aid programs which do still show other places where you have applied.

5

See https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/school-list “Note: Schools will not be able to see which other schools you listed on your FAFSA.”

6

Thank you both, thumper1 and 4kidsdad.

7

If you have a student who already filed a FAFSA, then you can do a “renewal” and it will have some of the information prefilled from the last FAFSA. Also if you have two in college you can do one FAFSA and then click on the link in the confirmation page “to start another child’s FAFSA” and it will bring some of parent info over.

But you will be doing only one FAFSA, a new one, for the 2017/18 year.

So your D will start a new FAFSA with her FSA ID and then you will import the 2015 tax return with the DRT and that will be all filled in. You will have to assign the work income to each parent if you file married jointly, because DRT will just bring in the combined income.

Then if you had pretax 401k contributions for 2015, you report them in question 94a.

Before FAFSA is submitted, both student and one parent must sign with FSA ID.

In our household my H is parent 1 and I am parent 2. Make sure you choose the correct parent when you sign.