Starting back to school or selecting a university might get a little easier for millions of American university students who annually file the Free Application For Federal Student Aid.
The Obama administration announced on Monday changes to the FAFSA form that aim to simplify it. The changes will go into effect during the 2017-2018 academic year, which means it will mainly affect current high school juniors as they start college.
Judy Cuellar, director of Student Financial Services at Oklahoma Christian University, said she has been waiting for these changes for several years, and the biggest change is older tax information can be used to fill out the form.
“Now, they’re going to prior, prior year, which gives you two years back, which means your taxes are already done,” Cuellar said.
Under the old system, prior year, students had to use tax information from returns the previous year in order to file a FAFSA, which could sometimes create problems for tax returns filed later.
Among the changes, new FAFSA forms will be available earlier. Instead of the new form becoming available every January, it will now be out in October, which means students can start filing and planning sooner.
Cuellar said having the form available sooner means both the students and school would have a better idea of what to expect financially for the upcoming school year.
“Schools are going to know sooner – they’ll be able to offer things sooner instead of waiting until the last minute,” Cuellar said. “Students are going to have a more informed choice because they’re going to have the information sooner.”
Special conditions to FAFSA will still be available for those who qualify. The form isn’t limited to two-year-old tax information, if an individual’s tax information differs greatly between an older tax return and the newer one, than the newest one will be made available for financial award considerations.
The takeaway from this article is that filing a FAFSA will get a lot less complicated in a couple of years and to some college applicants that might make all the difference.
“A lot of cases … some people will just give up because they’re not able to get their tax returns – or they don’t get them in a timely manner – or they file that extension and don’t file until late October,” Cuellar said. “This kind of takes that out of the picture.”
But to current college students, the old rules still apply.
“Get your taxes done quickly because it’s not in effect for next year, so we still have to use the same-old, same-old,” Cuellar said. “Get the taxes done early if you can.”
0
0
Be First to Comment