If you have a senior, you should know how important October 1 is these days. It’s opening day for FASFA filing! I recently listened to a couple of great podcasts about preparing for the FASFA over at Ultimate Homeschool Radio, and I highly recommend you check them! FASFA Equals Free Money, and FASFA 12 Best Kept Secrets were very informative. For instance, I had no idea that I needed an FSA ID to digitally sign the FASFA! But thanks to the advice from Jean Burk, we applied for our IDs today, so we will have them ready by October 1.
One thing that I believe Ms. Burk got wrong is the tax information needed to file. She mentions repeatedly in both shows about using the 2015 tax return to file. That is the information printed on the form I downloaded, however that was last year’s form. My research shows that will change come this October 1. Yes, you would be using the prior-prior year’s return, however, come October 1, 2017, you will be filing for the 2018 school year. That means that anyone filing for the 2018 school year should be using 2016 tax information.
But other than that, the podcasts were very informative. I really appreciate Ms. Burk and Ms. Felice Gerwitz for putting together this great resource for folks like me.