Early FAFSA filing is more important than ever

As university budgets nationwide are cut and tuition increased, it is more important than ever to fill out the FAFSA form early, administrators say.

The FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is used to qualify students for grants, loans and other forms of college aid.

“We have seen a record number of students applying for student aid and it being distributed,” said Haley Chitty, spokesperson for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

He said there has also been an increase in the number of students and families that appeal their FAFSA packages to try to get more aid.

He said this happens when families fill out the form and their financial need changes.

“You never know what you will get until you apply,” Chitty said. “Everyone is eligible for some sort of aid, even if it is a low-interest loan.

“But you can’t get aid unless you fill out the form,” he said.

Shirley Ort, the associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid at UNC, said she expects the number of students applying for financial aid to increase for the academic year 2011-12, but not as much as it did in 2009.

In 2008-09, 5,817 undergraduates received aid. The number increased by about 800 for 2009-10.

The number of students that received aid for 2010-11 is not known yet.

“When the economy hit everybody really hard it encompassed a lot of students,” Ort said. “And now even though there are some families that are losing jobs, the job lost isn’t as much as years ago.”

For the 2009-10 school year, 62 percent of UNC students received financial aid.

About 6,600 of the 11,298 students that received aid in 2009-10 were considered need-based.

Completing the FAFSA form by March 1 can help maximize the amount of aid a student gets, Ort said.

She said both the FAFSA form and the Financial Aid Profile, a form that helps award non-federal student aid, has to be completed by the deadline to be considered on-time.

Completing the FAFSA form more thoroughly can also help a student get more aid, said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid, a website that provides student financial aid information.

He said students are also able to get more aid if a parent has lost his or her job.

“The gap between need-based grants and college is going to be bigger, meaning students are going to have to borrow more and pay out of pocket more,” Kantrowitz said.

The online FAFSA form has been changed to make it easier and quicker to fill out.

One of the changes to the form is that if you have already filled out your taxes, you can now import the information directly on to the FAFSA form, Chitty said.

Chitty said the FAFSA form should be filled out online instead of on paper.

“This means the form is processed quicker and more accurate,” Chitty said.

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