What is the FAFSA?

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a form filled out by incoming and current college students seeking financial aid from the federal government. The FAFSA is used to determine the federal aid eligibility of each student. These include federal need-based grants such as the Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), both subsidized and unsubsidized federal student loans, the federal work-study programs.

The FAFSA is also used to determine state-based financial aid such as grants, scholarships, and loans.  

It is also used by most schools to determine non-federal student aid such as need or even merit-based financial aid award packages coming from the school itself. This is because most schools require the FAFSA to be processed and on file before giving any financial aid award package.

When is the FAFSA Available?

The FAFSA opens up the 1st of October on the year before you plan to enroll. For example, for those planning to attend college in the academic year 2022-23, the FAFSA opens up on October 1, 2021. The deadline is the 30th of June, 2022 for the 2022-23 academic year.

How Do I Get the FAFSA Form?

There are multiple ways to get the FAFSA form and apply. These are:

How Do I Get the FAFSA Form?

The fastest way to process your FAFSA is online, either through the website or mobile app. First you need to have an FSA ID, and if you're a dependent, then one of your parents also has to have an FSA ID. If you don't have one yet, you can create one here. The FSA ID is a username and password combination created using your name, birthdate and Social Security Number. Having this allows you to access your FAFSA online and have an electronic signature with which you can electronically sign your FAFSA.

Next, whether online or through the paper PDF form, you need to know which schools you're applying to or possibly intend to receive financial aid from and list them in the FAFSA. You'll need the Federal School Code for the schools.

Then, you'll need to put in certain personal and financial information such Social Security number (along with parents' Social Security numbers if you are a dependent student), driver’s license number (if applicable), Alien Registration number (if not a U.S. citizen), federal tax information for the student, and student’s spouse and/or student’s parents if applicable), records of untaxed income, and other financial holdings such as savings accounts or investments.  

Finally, you'll answer all the FAFSA questions, which are around 100+ and broken down into several categories such as student’s personal information, student’s financial information, student’s status, parents’ information, student’s household information, and student’s signature, date, and send off.  

One advantage of answering an online form is that you won't have to go through all 100+ questions since the questioning is sequential and may skip questions that aren't relevant to you based on your supplied information or answers. Another advantage is that you can use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool so your tax information can be retrieved from the IRS website and be used to pre-populate relevant fields. This way you don't need to go through the information one by one and fill them in. 

To get a better idea of what questions are on the FAFSA, view this Fafsa Application.

Getting the Student Aid Report (SAR)

Upon completion of the FAFSA, you either submit the completed form or mail it for processing. If you provided a valid email address on the FAFSA form, whether online or on paper, you will receive an email with the link to the online Student Aid Report (SAR). If you did not provide any email address, or gave an invalid one, then a printed copy of the SAR will be mailed to you. The SAR contains a summary of all the information you provided on the FAFSA. You need to review this and make any corrections if necessary.

The SAR also contains your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) information. The EFC measures the financial amount you and your family is expected to contribute to your college cost of attendance. It is used to assess your eligibility for the Federal Pell Grant as well as other federal and nonfederal student aid. The SAR is given to the colleges you listed in the FAFSA you submitted and these colleges will use this to determine any other financial aid eligibility for you.  

Basically, without the FAFSA, you will not be able to process any federal student financial aid, and even some non-federal aid coming from the schools.

How Long Does It Take for the FAFSA to Process?

The fastest time that your FAFSA can be processed and you can receive your SAR is 3-5 days. This is if you filled up the FAFSA form online (either via website or mobile app), provided a valid email address in the form, and then signed it with an FSA ID. You will receive an email notification that will allow you to access an online copy of the SAR which you can also print within 3-5 days.

If you processed your FAFSA online and signed it with an FSA ID, but did not provide any email address or provided an invalid one, you will receive a printed paper copy of the SAR via mail within 7-10 days.  

If you processed your FAFSA online and provided a valid email address, but did not sign it with an FSA ID, it may take up to 2 weeks to receive an email notification that your FAFSA has been processed and you can access your SAR online.  

If you filled up a paper FAFSA form and provided a valid email address there, it usually takes 7-10 days and at most 2 weeks to receive an email notification that your FAFSA has been processed and you can access your SAR online.  

If you filled up a paper FAFSA form but did not provide any email address or provided an invalid one, may take up to 3 weeks to receive a printed paper copy of the SAR via mail.  

These timelines are of course assuming all information you entered when completing the FAFSA form are valid and there are no errors.

Is It Okay to Make Corrections?

You may also make corrections to your FAFSA, the fastest of which is online. It usually takes 3-5 days for your corrections to be processed online. You can also make corrections through the mail via paper SAR copy, but it may take up to 3 weeks for these corrections to process. For the academic year 2022-23, any FAFSA corrections or updates must be submitted by September 10, 2022. You also need to watch out for any deadlines of the state or school you are applying for financial aid to as making any corrections might make you miss the deadline.

You can make corrections or updates to most of the information in your FAFSA form, such as adding or removing schools, or changing personal or financial information.  

For incorrect Social Security Number (SSN), the Federal Student Aid website recommends that you just submit a new online FAFSA form with the correct SSN. However, if you don't want to miss certain deadlines, you can also directly request the financial aid office of one of the schools included in your SAR to change your SSN for you. Lastly, you can change your SSN on the printed paper SAR and mail it to the address provided on the SAR, but this can take up to 3 weeks to process. Also, the SSN can only be changed through the paper SAR once.

How Long Before I Receive Any Financial Aid Package from FAFSA?

Once you receive your SAR, you should review all the information found on it and make sure they are correct. As mentioned, you will find the EFC in your SAR, and this is used by the federal government, states and schools to determine your eligibility for student financial aid and subsequently, any financial award packages. If you think there is something wrong with the EFC numbers you are getting, review your FAFSA and SAR information and make any changes or updates if needed.

The SAR from the processed FAFSA is also sent to all the schools you included when you filled up the FAFSA. The schools will then be the ones responsible to create any financial award packages that you will receive and also disbursing any money that comes from these financial aid packages. While some financial award packages come with the letter of acceptance to the college, the best thing to do would be to contact the school's financial aid office for any additional requirements to process the financial aid or if there are any problems or if no aid packages are offered. Usually federal financial aid such as grants and loans are disbursed before every term, such as at the start of a semester or quarter.

Is There Any Way to Fill Up the FAFSA Form Faster?

As mentioned, the fastest way to fill up the FAFSA would be online via website or the myStudentAid mobile app. This also makes processing and getting your SAR much faster. You should also make sure to get the FSA ID to make both processing and signing your FAFSA faster.

Another big tip to make filling up the FAFSA faster and more efficient is to make sure not to wait until the FAFSA opens on October 1 before you begin collecting all the information and requirements needed in the FAFSA. You can begin before the FAFSA opens.  

Make a list of all the schools you are planning to attend, get their Federal School Codes and make sure to note their deadlines for filing of student financial aid. You can have up to 10 schools in the list.  

Gather all necessary documents and information such as Social Security numbers, Driver’s license number or Alien Registration number, tax return information from 2 years prior, untaxed income and   investment information.

This may be both for you and your parents if you are a dependent.  Like we mentioned, if you're processing your FAFSA online, you can also use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to automatically import and fill in your tax information from the IRS website. This makes finishing the related fields faster.  

Get Help with Your College Application, Including the FAFSA

Having to fill out the FAFSA with all its requirements and 100+ questions is already difficult, and then you will also have to contend with organizing all the requirements for your college application, and possibly more financial aid via scholarships. This may be very time consuming and confusing especially as a graduating high school senior and incoming college freshman.

Submit your college applications and all related requirements like the FAFSA with confidence by availing of our Admissions in an Hour service. Get the help you need to organize the requirements for your college application. You can even get assistance with correctly filling out and submitting your FAFSA. All of these for just an hour of your time.