New Years... Resolutions?

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break and is back feeling a little more relaxed after some lighter weeks.

We are getting to the time of year where colleges are beginning to make decisions, send out decision letters and help students moving along with the dreaded Financial Aid since it's the beginning of tax season.

Financial Aid... why do these words inspire absolute terror in so many parents of college students? It's not just the looming possibility in this economy of not getting enough, but merely the thought of filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) that sends folks into a tizzy. They're overwhelmed with the prospect of filling this out before they've even looked at the form because they've heard how difficult it is.

But where on earth is that perception coming from?

Every financial aid officer that I personally know will tell you the FAFSA is an extremely easy document to fill out. Most of them will walk you step by step through the process as well, unless you're at one of those massive schools that seem to have 3 financial aid officers for every 15,000 students. (Exaggeration, yes, but when you're waiting in line for three hours to talk to one that's how it feels.) But there are workshops and other community resources offered in many places to assist parents with walking through the forms. Heck, the FAFSA form itself shows you how to fill it out- all you need to do is be able to match the instructions on the FAFSA with the line number on your taxes since it tells you exactly where to find the information it's asking for.

It also frightens me that a simple Google search for "FAFSA" offers so many places that will fill yours out for a nominal fee of $79.99. First off, the very first F in "FAFSA" stands for "free"... so why pay? And, what scares me even more is that these rather disreputable (in my opinion) companies will have your tax information as well as your birthday, social security number... etc. Would I trust them with this? Personally, absolutely not.

So, if you're coming up on starting your Financial Aid for the first time take a deep breath. The FAFSA isn't that bad. If you fill it out online it will even be remembered for next year. I think the last time I filled it out about a year ago I did the whole thing in a little under 15 minutes, so if I can do it and receive aid (so it must have gone in correctly) I believe a trained monkey could figure it out.