<p>The FAFSA will open on Jan. 1st. I doubt the W-2s and other tax/financial papers will be in by then. Is it all right to fill in the forms with the current information (previous year's)? If so, do I/my parents have to do anything once they get this years papers?</p>
<p>On a side note, my mom is convinced that the money given through filling out the FAFSA is "first-come-first-served". My dad thinks it doesn't matter when we file it. I believe doing it the day it's available is the best idea, but I could use some other opinons.</p>
<p>What you should do is file the FAFSA with your available information now (estimates) and then amend the FAFSA later on.</p>
<p>Your parents are both right, sort of. For Stafford loans and Pell grants, the funding can’t ‘run out’; if you qualify for the aid you will receive it as long as you fill the FAFSA. You could even theoretically wait until June if you wanted to.</p>
<p>However, most states and schools have priority deadlines which are much earlier than that. You need to meet those deadlines for institutional aid and state-based aid. In addition, there are some federal aid programs such as the Perkins loans program and the FSEOG (grant aid supplements) that have limited funding; if you miss the deadline then you probably won’t get them even if you ordinarily would qualify for them. </p>
<p>It’s best to fill out the FAFSA as early as possible if you want need-based aid. Use estimates to start with and amend them later when your actual tax forms come in.</p>
<p>You can complete the 2015-2016 FAFSA begonning on January 1. If you do this, you should use the best possible estimates for the 2014 tax year. If your income is very similar to 2013, you can use that as a guide…adjusting up if it is higher…down if it is lower.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is primarily used to determine your eligibility for federally funded need based aid. There are some forms of federally funded aid that ARE limited funded per college…and are awarded on a first come, first served bases. These include federal work study, Perkins Loans, and SEOG if the school has it. These are awards for lower income students…so best to file that FAFSA very early to get into the queue for those.</p>
<p>Other forms of federal aid…Direct Loans are available to all who complete a FAFSA. The Pell Grant is also federally funded, but it is not limited funds.</p>
<p>What do you then do? When you file prior to completing taxes, you file using best possible estimates (parent last pay stubs of the year should be a huge help). Submit using a “will file” status, meaning you have not yet comoleted your 2014 taxes, but will be doing so.</p>
<p>As soon as possible after February 1, complete your 2014 taxes. Go back into the FAFSA site, and to your FAFSA. Edit all the fields required to reflect 2014 actual tax returns. Then change your status to “taxes completed” and resubmit to all of your schools. You will also link to the IRS Data Retrieval tool.</p>
<p>You want to get this done as early as reasonably possible. This is not the year to,wait until April 15 to file your federal tax return.</p>
<p>The best day to complete the FAFSA is when you have $0 in your bank accounts (i.e. after paying mortgage or rent, credit cards, etc.). You cannot change the amount of your assets once you have submitted the FAFSA.</p>
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My dad works at Princeton University, which means nothing for my admission there but it does mean that 50% of my tuition will be paid for any college(s) I go to. The other 50% will have to be covered in scholarships. They won’t be putting money into my tuition and I guess I’ll be paying for transportation, supplies and possibly room/board myself (I have no car or license). I’d like to work in the IT field when I’m older, like for a school or company. Now that you’ve read my current situation, what do you think? What are my chances of getting into a good college with or without that AP course? Do I even need it (will it make a difference)? By the way, I live in NJ (think West Windsor/ Princeton area).</p>
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<p>I looked at your other thread, posted last summer. </p>
<p>Your parents are naive about how one AP class will “open doors” for you. You either took a rigorous curriculum or you didn’t …and you didn’t, even if you took that AP Euro class as your only AP and no honors classes.</p>
<p>Unless your parents are low income, you’re not going to get “free money” from the gov’t after filling out FAFSA. </p>
<p>What is your current SAT score? </p>
<p>Did you identify schools that will give you enough merit to supplement your dad’s half-tuition benefit? If not, how will the rest of your costs get paid?? </p>
<p>Have you had your parents run the NPCs on your schools’ websites?</p>
<p>It’s kinda funny actually because I went ahead and did what I wanted and the outcome was satisfactory.
My best SAT score was 1940 (650-640-650) which was the first test I took, which I did not study for and actually did better on than the one I took after they forced me into hours of tutoring.
My GPA is 3.74 and I took not honor or AP courses in High School.
I applied to Rutgers, Felician, William Paterson, Mercer County Community College (and its honors program), and Ramapo.
Rutgers (Camden [New Brunswick hasn’t replied yet]), Felician, William Paterson, and Mercer (plus the honors program) all accepted me within a week of receiving my applications. Felician has already offered me enough scholarships and grants to make my annual cost be lower than $5,000.
My parents will not pay for my education, so I’ll probably take loans (which my dad is super against) to cover costs. My dad is pushing me to work my whole summer to save up money to pay for college. I’m going to work at least part of the summer anyway, but the pressure doesn’t help.
My dad has tried to find out my cost for Rutgers using the tool they provide. Currently, it would cost me $15,000 a year to go there including Princeton’s help but not including scholarships, loans, or grants. I don’t remember whether that is commuting or + room and board.
As for getting “free money”, I’m not really expecting any since our total income is around $150,000 annually, though it feels like we’re always having money problems, so I don’t know where all that money is going.</p>
<p>You, the student, will be able to take a $5500 Direct Loan in your own name for freshman year. Any loans above that amount will either need to be cosigned by your parent, or will need to be taken out by your parents.</p>
<p>They’ll probably cosign. My dad is completely against taking loans for me and will not put a penny into my college education. I’ll be 18 by the time school starts, but I don’t have a credit card/score so I don’t know how loans would work out.</p>
<p>It seems quite odd that your dad, who works at Princeton, is so against helping you out financially for college - almost as if he doesn’t want you to even go to college. Or, am I misreading this?</p>
<p>If your dad is against loans, and taking out loans, why would he be agreeable to consigning loans for you? When someone cosigns, they are taking on responsibility for those loans. The loans will appear on their credit reports. The loans could end up being their responsibility if you don’t pay.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine someone who is completely against loans would be a willing cosigner.</p>
<p>My dad was born and raised in France. My mom believes that his attitude towards our finances is a product of how he was raised (not saying all Frenchmen are like that.) He’s very frugal. My dad does want me to go to college, but I think the standards he judging my decisions on are just not relevant to my life.</p>
<p>As for why he would cosign the loans: I’m pretty sure my mom would make him do it or do it herself. I don’t think my mom would let me take the full brunt of $120,000 in loans if it ever came to that. She’s also okay with me staying at home for a little while after college to pay off my loans quicker; though my dad doesn’t seem happy with the thought.</p>
<p>Strange - if he doesn’t want to pay for college (forced into cosigning), just who does he think should pay for you to go to college (aside from your summer earnings and $5500-$7500/year loans) - the American taxpayers?</p>
<p>This student is talking about $120,000 in college loans. The $27,000 total for four years Direct Loans are a drop in the bucket. This student will still have $100,000 in loans when he graduates (remember, costs go up annually and at some schools so does the student contribution).</p>
<p>This whole thread isn’t making any sense. </p>
<p>The OP needs to be quite sure quite sure that he has affordable options in his application list. </p>
<p>I mentioned $120,000 as a really high upper limit. If I choose to go to Rutgers, it’ll probably be around $15,000 a yeat. I’m going for a bachelors in nursing so 4 years will amount to around $60,000. Probably a bit more including supplies and other costs. I don’t remember if that includes room+board or not, so that might add another $11,000 a year since I probably won’t be able to drive so far every day. </p>
<p>I have my affordable option which is going to my community college. I’ve already been accepted to the honors program so it’s not an awful choice. I could even get my Rutgers degree on the community college campus because they have a partnership. My main problems with going there are that it would take an extra year (to complete the prerequisites) and that my two years of classes (after my associate’s) to get my BSN would be almost entirely online. That is not favorable since I’m going into nursing.</p>
<p>This is all really going on a tangent though. I just needed information on the FAFSA and everything went off topic since I reply to things in detail. Sorry.</p>
<p>I just needed to better understand the importance of filing early and what to put in there.</p>
<p>What exactly can you get from your parent’s tuition benefit? Is it 1/2 of the tuition costs for a college or a fixed amount or 1/2 the total cost of the college? Rutgers COA for in staters who live on campus is about $30K a year. About $13500 is tuition, about $13K is for room/board. If your parent’s tuition benefit will pay half the tuition you will still have about $23250 that you will need to come up with to go there. Getting about $3250 earned and saved by working this summer means $20K that you need to cover. You can take out $5500 in loans. Highly unlikely that Rutgers will come up with financial aid for you, unless your parental income is lower than I suspect it is, especially with the tuition benefit in the picture. That means your mother will have to come up iwth $14500 in loans for you. Whether cosigning them with you or taking them out herself through PLUS is the better deal, I don’t know. Usually I find the PLUS is a cleaner way to do it. Either way, you are looking at more than $80K in loans, close to $90K before you start having to pay it. That’s an awful lot of debt. </p>
<p>The 1/2 off only covers the tuition itself. I may be able to commute. My dad mentioned that I may be able to take a train there and back? Not including transportation costs, I’ll be paying $15,000 a year if I commute and go to Rutgers. After 4 years, it’ll be about $60,000 in loans. As a nurse, I won’t have too much trouble starting out with at least $45,000 a year if I can score a decent job. If I live at home for a few years, I could probably pay it off without too much trouble. Rutgers aside, I could still go with Felician’s offer and pay around $5,000 a year. $20,000 in loans isn’t too bad. At the moment, I like Rutgers more which is why I’m trying to find a way to afford it.</p>