Speaker 1: When it comes to FAFSA, a lot of families ask me, what can I do to get the most financial aid? What can I do when it comes to FAFSA to get the most money from these universities? In today's video, I want to give you three specific actions that your family can do to increase the chances of you receiving financial aid. Now make sure you hit subscribe because every single week we release a new strategy to help your family work towards a debt-free degree with your students. Hey there, my name is Jocelyn Pearson, founder of The Scholarship System and Debt-Free Degree Lab where we redefine paying for college to help families build strong financial futures rather than ones buried in student loan debt. Now, we primarily help students get scholarships for college, but a big part of getting that debt-free degree is also focusing on financial aid. How can we maximize that debt-free money that we can get access to? So FAFSA, which stands for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, it is a very important step in this process. Now this application is how federal entities and state entities and even the universities use your family's financial information to make decisions on those financial aid packages. So there are schools where even if you are not eligible for money through the government because of this form's results, they won't even give you money if you don't do the form. So it is used by many different people to make a lot of important decisions, especially ones that will impact how much your student has to borrow or how much you as a family are going to pay. Now I have an entire FAFSA playlist, so you definitely want to check that out. We will link to it in the description. And also, like I mentioned, if your student is going through the FAFSA process, that means they also need to be doing scholarships. So at this point, not only do we want to maximize money from the school, but we also should be working on scholarships. So if you're interested in learning where to find legitimate scholarships, I have a free training. It's my six steps to securing scholarships. I'll link to that in the description as well, or you can find it somewhere on the screen here. But open that up for after this video. The first secret is to apply early. Now that said, before I even get into why, October 1st is when FAFSA opens. So starting your student's senior year in high school, that October, we need to submit FAFSA. I've had families October 1st, like within hours, messaging me, freaking out because the website's bogged down and all this stuff, panicking because they don't get it submitted by the end of October 1st. I'm not saying it has to be on October 1st, okay? In fact, actually, I would recommend waiting maybe a week, two weeks, even three weeks. But ideally, if we can have FAFSA done by the end of October, then that is fantastic. Now, there are a few reasons why we want to submit it early. First and foremost, different schools, different states have different deadlines. So the rule of thumb used to be with the tax deadline, that was the deadline for FAFSA. But actually, some institutions have requirements for FAFSA to be submitted well before that. I mean, even December of your student's senior year. So I've seen students miss out on a lot of money with major universities. And I'm talking like $40,000 a year in money because they missed that school's specific deadline. So that said, if we can do it early, we don't even have to worry about it, right? But I would recommend looking into each university that your student is going to apply to and just confirm what their deadline is so that you know you at least meet that deadline. This also, depending on the state, can give them access to more money because some of the money is based on a first come, first serve status. So the sooner they get in line, the chances of them receiving money are higher. If they wait until spring of their senior year and they wait for the financial aid packages to be coming out, that money is already awarded out. So we do not want to wait until then. That said, there are states where first come, first serve, and once the money's gone, it is gone. So we don't want to have that happen to us. Another reason we want to submit early is because it gives us time to make corrections. In spring, that's when we'll get our financial aid packages usually and figure out what we can pay and commit to a school. But the earlier we get FAFSA, the earlier we can get that estimate and start looking into scholarships, for example, or start comparing schools and seeing which ones are reasonable, which ones are just totally out of range. So again, the earlier, the better in this case because it just can give us more time to make decisions. It can also give us more time to make corrections. So maybe after it's submitted, you realize, oh my gosh, our tax information wasn't submitted correctly or we fudged this number or whatever it is. It just gives you more time, more leniency there to get the numbers in and still be considered normal with the process of the school deciding how much aid your student will receive. So that said, again, we want to submit it as early as possible starting October of your student's senior year. And we want to make sure that, it doesn't have to be right away, but we do want to make sure that for sure by the end of that month, if we can get it done, that'll be better. Now, secret number two goes off of a common myth that I have to always address with families. And that is, oh, we make too much money. People told us not even to submit FAFSA. And that is why secret number two is, even if you don't think you'll qualify, always fill out FAFSA. The only exception I would say I've seen here is some students are afraid to if maybe there's kind of immigration issues. But if you are a family, if you're US citizens, there is no reason not to do this. Like I mentioned earlier, this gives students access to federal funds, to state funds, but also there are institutions that use this to decide what they will offer the student from their own funds. So a lot of universities, most universities, will not even consider your student for any kind of institution money without the FAFSA form. So again, you have to submit FAFSA. It's just non-negotiable with our families in the scholarship system in Debt Free Degree Lab. They know, they always want to submit this, even if we don't think we're going to get anything. Now that said, believe it or not, there are families that make multiple six figures that do receive something, even if it is federal loans. Those are typically the best loan terms that a student will receive. So even if it's debt money that we're getting through the government, it's still going to be better off typically than private loans, for example. So again, we always, always want to submit this. Now, if you're unsure about the difference between scholarships, like I mentioned earlier, that free training you want to check out in the description, or financial aid, or government loans, I have a video where I go into scholarships and financial aid, what's the difference. So we will link to that video in the description as well. You can check that out after this video, just to make sure you understand the different terminology and the different kinds of funds that your student can actually pursue for college. Now, the last point here with making sure that you submit a FAFSA form is that some universities give something called a gap scholarship. This is where the amount that FAFSA says that you can afford, the difference between that and the bill, they'll match. So they will give your student some sort of aid package that covers that gap for your family. So again, there's no way to even calculate that if you're a student and you, if you haven't filled out FAFSA. Okay, the third and final secret is to apply each year. Now, stick with me because I'm gonna have multiple reasons why, so don't assume, okay, we know that, click off. When it comes to applying each year, I'm talking about starting senior year, October again, but every year that your student is going to college thereafter. Here's the reason why this has to be done. The FAFSA form requires prior prior tax year information, and it asks your current banking information, your assets, all these different questions. When your student is in college, that can change a lot. For example, COVID, we saw overnight, people lose their income or just financial situations change drastically, very quickly. And so this is a very extreme example of how family situations can definitely change year to year. Also, by doing it annually, every single year, you and your student will have an opportunity to appeal for more money. So for example, if the numbers that are submitted to FAFSA say that you can afford way more than you truly can, in some instances, you may be able to show proof that that is not the truth, that is not the case anymore, and they can adjust the financial aid package. So this is why we have to make sure that we're doing this every single year. Your financial situation changes, so they might be able to get more money the following year, even if they didn't get anything the previous year. The other thing that's interesting is when they're submitting FAFSA, it's based off of the other students enrolling, right? So maybe if your student is going to a lower income area school, your numbers make it seem like you all make more than most of the students. Or maybe they go to a very well-off school and now you're at the lower end of what a student is, what a student's family is earning compared to other students. Every year, that comparison, that student body and the demographics and the numbers change as well. So again, even if yours haven't changed that much, maybe the school's student body has changed. So again, these are different reasons and just understanding how it works is so important to understanding the importance of submitting this every single year. Now again, going off of this, we wanna make sure we're watching the deadlines every year. They can change, each school has their own. So we always want to make sure that we watch the deadlines to submit and also to appeal if that is something that you think your family can do. All right, so that said, while I wanna be careful not spending too much time diving into specific scenarios right now, comment below, do you have a unique situation? Are you curious about it? Comment below and we can comment back with some resources, some videos, maybe even help you out with some answers here. So comment below if you have questions about any of these. But that said, again, submitting FAFSA, it is such a critical part of the college process. It can drastically reduce what your family has to pay or at the very least, it can get your student much better terms when it comes to borrowing and ones that parents don't have to co-sign. So that's a big tip as well. So that said, hopefully you all will listen to me and submit FAFSA and use these three secrets to really maximize that aid. Again, make sure you hit subscribe so that you don't miss out on any other strategies we release for working towards that debt-free degree and make sure you check out all the amazing resources I mentioned, they are all linked in the description. I'll see you in the next video.
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