Lesson 1.1 · 3 minWhy the FAFSA comes firstWhy the FAFSA comes first
This lesson shows you what filing the FAFSA sets in motion and how to plan your year around it. One form feeds federal aid, much of the aid states give and many awards colleges fund themselves, so the timing of that single filing shapes most of what comes later in this course.
One form read by many offices
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is the form the US Department of Education uses to consider students for federal grants, Federal Work-Study and Direct Loans. You file it at studentaid.gov, and filing costs nothing. A website that charges a fee to submit it for you is selling a task you can do yourself.
Your answers travel well beyond the federal government. Most states use the same information to award their own grants, and many colleges read it before handing out need-based aid from their own budgets. Some private scholarship sponsors ask for it as well, because it gives them a standard picture of a household's finances.
That is why counselors call the FAFSA the first step. Until your form is processed, a school has very little to build an aid offer from, even for awards that have nothing to do with federal programs.
The calendar behind the form
The FAFSA opens by October 1 each year for the award year that begins the following summer. An award year runs from July 1 to June 30, and each form is named for the two calendar years it spans. The federal deadline sits at the very end of that award year, which makes it the least useful date to aim for.
States and schools set their own, much earlier deadlines. Some state grants are handed out in the order forms arrive until that year's funds run out, and some colleges want your FAFSA by a priority date in winter or early spring. Your state's higher education agency and each school's financial aid page list the dates that apply to you.
Why last year's taxes are enough
The form asks about income from two years before the award year starts, which usually means the tax return your household filed in the spring before you sit down with it. Because that return already exists in October, there is no reason to wait for the next tax season. Filing early simply means using numbers that are already settled.
If your family's money situation has shifted a great deal since that tax year, file anyway with the information the form asks for. A job loss, a divorce or heavy medical bills can be explained to each school's financial aid office afterward, and the last lesson in this course shows how that request works.
A new form every year
Each FAFSA covers one award year only. Students who stay in school file again every year, starting when the new form opens in the fall. Skipping a year can cost you state or school awards that depend on an on-time filing, even when nothing else about your life has changed.
Students who expect little need-based help still have reasons to file. Federal Direct Loans for undergraduates require a processed FAFSA, and some colleges ask for one before paying out their own merit scholarships.
Try this week
- Look up your state's FAFSA deadline
- Write each school's priority date on a calendar
- Find the tax return your household filed last spring
- Pick a week in October to file
Takeaway. File the FAFSA soon after it opens each fall, because state and school deadlines arrive long before the federal one.