By snoadmin
For some students, financial aid plays a huge role in their educational careers. In order to determine how much financial aid students can receive, they must file a document called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as the FAFSA.
The FAFSA application was released for the upcoming 2013-14 school year on Jan. 1, and students have until March 2 to meet the priority deadline. Cal State Long Beach financial aid counselor and compliance coordinator Ali Gonzalez sat down with the Daily 49er to provide suggestions for filing the FAFSA, loans and advice on what not to do.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for students that are applying for the FAFSA?
G: I can say the most important thing that I would tell students when they’re applying is to apply on time. Students who file on time have priority access to the funds that are available, granted that they qualify and meet all the eligibility requirements.
Another thing is to read and stay on top of your emails. Make sure that your junk email filter is set so you don’t miss those notifications. We may be sending out documentation with you that has a sensitive turnaround time. If you don’t get that in, then that could put you in jeopardy as far as getting you packaged with the best aid you’re eligible for.
Q: Do you have any other important suggestions for students applying?
G: If possible, try use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. It allows a student or parent to fill out the FAFSA and transfer their information over from the IRS into the FAFSA application. After you do that, you don’t have to worry about anything else with the actual application or updating it.
Q: What are the most common mistakes people make when they are applying for financial aid?
G: I would say not filing on time. Another thing is when students wait to fill it out because they haven’t gotten their taxes yet. What we always encourage students to do is get the application on time, and you can always estimate based on your income from this year or last year’s tax returns. The second component of that is when you actually do file your taxes, you go back into your application and update it.
Q: What kind of aid should students expect based on their financial information?
G: The FAFSA is like a holistic application where it looks at a couple of things like financial information, family size and number in college. Based on all of that information, [the Department of Education] comes back with a number the student may be eligible to receive.
Q: How much is too much to take out in loans?
G: It’s really at the discretion of the student, but we don’t encourage borrowing loans if you don’t need them or overborrowing more than you need.
For more information on financial aid, call (562)985-8403 or visit the Financial Aid Office in Brotman Hall.
