Your guide to FAFSA

What is the FAFSA?

FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It's a form with questions about your household income that you fill out every year to apply for federal grants, work-study, and loans.

The form submission generates a Student Aid Report that will sent to the colleges you apply to.

This is what determines your financial aid package: your college uses the information from your Student Aid Report to determine your federal aid eligibility and to award their own aid.

Who is eligible?

To be eligible for the FAFSA, you have to satisfy Federal Student Aid eligibility criteria which requires you to :

- Be enrolled or accepted for enrollment in an eligible degree or certificate program at either a college or a career school (or be enrolled at least half-time to be eligible for Direct Program funds. Essentially, you have to be a student .

- Be a U.S Citizen or an eligible non-citizen.

Eligible non-citizens are US Nationals (ie from American Samoa), US permanent residents, as well as people designated as Refugees, Asylum Granted, Cuban-Haitian Entrant ( Status Pending), Conditional Entrant (valid before 1/4/1980), Victims of trafficking, T-visa holder, Parolee (paroled into the US for at least a year and able to provide USCIS evidence that you intend to become a US citizen or permanent resident.)

- Have a valid Social Security number except students from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau)

- Maintain satisfactory academic progress in college or career school.

- Sign the certification statement on the FAFSA form

- Show you're qualified to obtain a college or career school education .

You can find more information about eligibility for federal student aid on the Federal Student Aid website. The graphic below, also from the Federal Student Aid website gives an idea of basic eligibility criteria for federal student aid.

How do you get it?

As mentioned above, completing the FAFSA form with get you a Student Aid Report that wi;; be sent to your school, specifically to its Financial Aid Office. They will calculate the amount of the aid you're eligible to be awarded and then subtract it for the amount you would owe the school. You will then be sent the remaining balance to pay- that's your school bill.

Source: https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa