Pell Grants

Pell Grants are based on financial need, costs to attend college, the student’s status as either a full-time or a part-time student and whether the student plans to attend college for a full academic year or less. The maximum Pell Grant award for the 2010-11 award year (July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011) is $5,550.   Any Pell Grant eligible student whose parent or guardian died as a result of military service in Iraq or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 is awarded the maximum amount if the student is under 24 years old and was enrolled at least part-time in college at the time of the parent’s or guardian’s death.

A student can receive up to two consecutive Pell Grant awards during a single award year to accelerate the program toward the student’s degree. The student must be enrolled at least half-time and in a program that leads to an associate or bachelor’s degree or certificate.

Income Based Repayment Program

Much of federal student financial aid is in the form of loans.  However, a new program called the Income Based Repayment Program makes federal loans less painful.  Borrowers who participate in this program will have monthly payments capped at 10 percent of the income a borrower has left over after covering basic needs and after 20 years any remaining debt is forgiven.  If the borrower becomes a teacher, nurse, member of the armed forces or other public service worker, the remaining debt is forgiven after 10 years.  Federal loans were already a much better deal than any private education loan, but with this new program, they become even better.

Current Income Based Repayment Program (IBR)

Right now students are eligible for IBR if their monthly payments under this plan are less than their monthly payments calculated under a 10-year standard repayment plan.  Also students have to pay for 25 years and meet other requirement s before any balances of their loans are canceled.  However, public service workers already can have the remainder of their loans canceled after 10 years.

For more important information about IBR, go to IBR Plan Information. Or, to download an IBR Fact Sheet in PDF format, click here.

Fill Out the FAFSA to Qualify for Federal Student Aid

Remember, students must fill out the FAFSA to qualify for federal student aid, so even if you think you make too much money to qualify for grants, it is always smart to fill out the FAFSA.  Some of the loans are not dependent on income level, so they are going to be available no matter what your income.  Interest is lower for federal loans and the new Income Based Repayment Program makes federal loans even more attractive.

Before I get into how filling out FAFSA is easier this year, first l want to comment on something that has come up repeatedly when I talk to people about FAFSA.  Many parents feel that they make too much money to qualify for financial aid, so they don’t think they should bother completing the FAFSA.   It’s a good idea to fill out the FAFSA anyway.  Why?  First — because some expensive private universities give financial aid to fairly high income families.  Second– because not only are federal grants (scholarships) determined by the FAFSA, but also federal Work Study job eligibility, federal loans, state financial aid and often the colleges’ financial aid.  Even if the only thing you qualify for is a loan, federal college loans have lower interest and better repayment terms than banks’ education loans.  Filling out the FAFSA starts the financial aid process. It is sent to the colleges and universities that you request.  If you’ve completed the FAFSA and a college accepts your student, they know they need to put together a financial aid package for your student.

Help Filling Out FAFSA

Filling out FAFSA is so much easier this year.  They’ve included help notes next to each section of the online FAFSA that answers typical questions about that section.  The FAFSA is supposed to take one hour to fill out, but that assumes you have all your facts and figures at your fingertips.  The good news is that the online version will save your form if you can’t do it all at once.  I suggest you fill out all the worksheets before tackling the FAFSA so you will have all your facts and figures ready before you start filling it out.  The website for filling out the FAFSA is www.fafsa.gov.

In the Olden Days of Filling Out the FAFSA

I’ll never forget the first time I filled out the FAFSA for my son.  It was 2001 and I left it until the last minute.  In those days when you applied for a  PIN, (something you have to have to use the online version), you had to wait until it came in the mail.  If you lost it, you were out of luck because there was no way of retrieving it. Now you can get them to resend it to you online and you can generate it immediately online here.

Many colleges and some states have deadlines for the FAFSA, and the earliest deadline for a college my son was applying to was fast approaching.  In 2001 filling out something online was not as easy as it is now because my computer and internet providers were a little shaky.  I’d be filling it out and all of a sudden, the browser would just close and I’d have to get back on.  With only the dial up method available, I’d spend precious minutes just trying to get reconnected to the internet.  My frustration was at the max and I finally switched to my husband’s Mac, because it was much more stable.  I think I just barely made the deadline, thanks to prayer and Apple.

Be sure you know your state and college’s deadline and plan accordingly.  Also get the FAFSA in as soon as you can because it can be a first-come-first-served situation.  Colleges and universities do not have an unlimited amount of financial aid and neither do states or the federal government.  You don’t want to get your FAFSA in after the deadline because that puts you at the end of the line for financial aid, and often the money runs out before the end of the line.  Although the federal government provides more than $100 billion in new aid every year to nearly 14 million postsecondary students and their families, even that number isn’t unlimited.   Even if you’re not eligible for federal aid, you may be eligible for state financial aid.  For more information, you can contact your State Higher Education Agency, listed on this website.

Do Your Taxes Before The FAFSA

Some of the facts you have to know to fill out the FAFSA are the student’s and parent’s adjusted gross income.  You get those figures from the income tax returns.  If the student or parent(s) didn’t work for the previous year (in this case 2009) and won’t be filling out an income tax return, that can be indicated on the FAFSA form.  Also, if the student is what the federal government considers an independent student, the parent(s)’ information in not needed.  To see if the student is considered independent you can use this PDF.  However, If the student is dependent, the parent(s)’ tax information, including how much money they made and how much their investments are worth is required.  With a few exceptions, it doesn’t matter if the parents want to give this information or if the child doesn’t even live with the parents – it’s a requirement if the student wants to qualify for federal financial aid.  If the income taxes are not done before the FAFSA is filled out, the gross adjusted income and other facts have to be estimated and corrected later if need be.

More Help Filling Out FAFSA

For more in-depth help in filling out the FAFSA, you can go to this site.  It has a PDF file that answers most questions about the questions.  Some of the financial questions can get complicated, so this is a good resource if you are not sure what financial assets you have to report.  If all else fails, you can call the Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC) at 1-800-4-FED-AID (1-800-433-3243) or contact your financial aid administrator (FAA).

Good luck to all of you filling out a FAFSA.  It’s worth the trouble.

Blessings,

Bonnie

To use the IBR Calculator you will need to know your estimated adjusted gross income, the amount that you owed on your eligible federal student loans when you entered repayment, the estimated average interest rate on your eligible federal student loan, and your family size. You plug these figures into the IBR Calculator, and this gives you the payment amount your would pay on your government student aid through the Income Based Repayment plan. If that payment is lower than the monthly payment under a 10-year standard repayment plan, then you are eligible to repay your loans under IBR.

During this time of economic hardship and mounting student debt, this federal student loan program could be a lifesaver for many students and their families. Check it out at the Federal Student Aid website.

Blessings,
Bonnie

VIDEO TUTORIAL
The Financial Aid staff at the University of California, Santa Barbara has designed a video tutorial on filling out the FAFSA called “Eight Easy Steps to the FAFSA: A Student’s Guide to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.” Because it is divided into eight segments, you can use all of it or just the segments for the sections of the FAFSA that are giving you trouble. Two people named Natalie and George go through the entire FAFSA line by line. They are a little too happy for my taste, but that might reflect my previous hours of struggling with the FAFSA.

Help from the FAFSA Itself
There’s a help button in the lower left-hand corner of every page of the FAFSA that you fill out online. This will give you help on the specific questions that are on that page, as well as links to FAQs and Customer Service.

The FAQ for the FAFSA says that it will take you less than an hour to fill it out. HA!!! It takes less than an hour IF you’ve already found all the information and filled in the worksheet they provide,which is basically a FAFSA that you can print. If you’re just copying answers from the paper to the web, then, yes, it can be done in less than an hour. Otherwise, allow more time, and DON’T wait until the day before the deadline for your state or college. That’s just asking for trouble.

Believe me, I know. The first FAFSA I ever filled out was done in the middle of the night the day before I thought it was due. Luckily, I was wrong and I had more time. Unluckily, I didn’t know that and my internet connection kept crashing. It was a rough night. By the way, if your internet connection crashes while you are doing your FAFSA on the Web, it will automatically save it and you will be able to access it in 45 minutes. (Of course, if you’re panicking because you think you’ve got just hours until it’s due, 45 minutes seems like a lifetime.)

Besides the FAQs, there is a link to “Web Customer Service Chat.” However, when I tried to access that, I got a screen that said that the following browsers had not been certified for use with Live help: Netscape Navigator (all platforms), AOL (Windows), Firefox (all platforms), Internet Explorer 7.x (Windows). Since I use Internet Explorer 7, I could not use it.

COMING SOON
“The Secrets of Financial Aid” – an ebook with all the secrets I’ve discovered in my comprehensive research of the subject. Make sure you’re on my email list, so you can get a copy as soon as it is released. Just fill in the boxes on the right hand site of this blog. Blessings,
Bonnie