By: Brittany Buckmaster
The
FASFA is an application that student fill out at the beginning of the New Year.
It helps them get the loans or grants they need to help them continue in
getting an education. Within the past year, the FASFA has started requesting
more documents that make it more difficult to get loans or grants. It makes it
more difficult because it takes longer to get financial aid and you cannot get
it until you have submitted all the paperwork.
The new paperwork you have to submit is a dependent verification
worksheet, the student taxes, parent taxes, and dependent supplemental
verification worksheet. Without filling out all of these papers along with your
FASFA, you cannot apply for scholarships through AACC.
I spoke
with Jackie Robinson, who formerly worked at the Financial Aid office at AACC,
and she answered some questions for me about the FASFA. Jackie told me, “The
reason we need more information is because some students apply for the FASFA,
get grants and/or loans, accept them, drop out of college, and take all the
money. Those students normally do it to multiple different schools.” I asked
Jackie, “why would those students do that if it is going to put them in debt?”
She told me that when you accept the grants, you do not have to pay that money
back.
I
interviewed Abby Harding about the FASFA as well. Abby told me, “The FASFA is
annoying. It asks for my parents information and goes off of their taxes, even
though they don’t support me. If I support myself, the FASFA should go off of
my taxes, not my parents.” Abby also told me she did not like how much
paperwork there was for the FASFA.
The
FASFA is changing, but only to insure students are using the money they receive
properly.
