By Carrie Brown McWhorter
The Alabama Baptist
Planning ahead is important in most things but it is especially helpful when it comes to paying for post-secondary education or training.
More than 85 percent of undergraduate students rely on financial aid. Still experts believe more than $2 billion dollars of aid goes unclaimed in the United States each academic year.
That’s a lot of money left on the table that could help Alabama students pursue an advanced degree or technical certification, said Kristina Scott, executive director of Alabama Possible, a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce poverty and its impact in the state.
“One of the biggest barriers to post-secondary education is that students and their parents don’t know about the availability of financial aid for both 2- and 4-year education programs,” she said. “Whether you want to work in an advanced manufacturing plant or get an English degree, the financial aid form is the key.”
FAFSA
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the primary way both public and private colleges and universities determine a student’s eligibility for financial aid and put together an aid package to cover costs.
A financial aid package may consist of money from federal, state and local sources. Federal funds come in the form of grants, loans and work-study opportunities. Many students in Alabama qualify for the Pell Grant, the largest federal grant program available to undergraduate students. In order to qualify for a Pell Grant, which does not have to be paid back, a student must demonstrate financial need. Those who qualify for the 2017–18 academic year will be awarded $5,920 to use for their studies.
Sources of money
A financial aid package also may include money from state sources, college or university funds, and/or scholarships from nonprofit or private organizations. Regardless of the sources of money, the FAFSA gets the process started, which is why several organizations in Alabama have joined forces to encourage students to complete the form during their senior year of high school. The campaign is called “Cash for College Alabama.”
“Everyone should fill out the form,” Scott said. “Nationally the U.S. Department of Education reports that 9 out of 10 students who fill out the FAFSA attend college the following fall.”
That number is important, especially in Alabama where increasingly jobs require some kind of advanced training beyond high school.
“For so many years you could graduate from high school and go get a job in a factory on an assembly line or in a field or a mine and you could make enough to support your family. Now the jobs that pay a wage so you can support your family are jobs that require post-secondary education,” Scott said.
That’s not to say that well-paying jobs require a four-year degree or higher. It’s actually just the opposite.
Numbers from the Alabama Department of Education suggest that for every job in the future that requires a master’s degree or higher, there will be seven jobs that require a one-year certificate or two-year degree. Jobs in health care top the list of fastest-growing jobs but team assemblers, automotive technicians, mechanics and construction helpers are in high demand as well.
Financial aid is available to pay for training but students have to apply for it.
One reason many students don’t apply for financial aid is the common misconception that aid calculations are based solely on parental income, Scott said.
Variety of factors
Many factors are taken into account, like how many other kids in the family are in college, the age of the student’s parents and the parents’ income. Some factors don’t matter at all in the calculations including how much a family’s home is worth, how much parents have saved for retirement and the student’s grades.
Today’s FAFSA is completed online using income tax data from two years prior, which means students don’t have to wait on current year tax returns to fill out the form. Another beneficial change is that FAFSA filers can securely connect to the IRS website and automatically pull in data from tax forms.
Upcoming deadline
“It’s a rare occasion of government agencies talking to each other and it’s so much more secure than students carrying their parents’ tax returns to school,” Scott said.
The upcoming March 1 deadline is important because students who complete the form before the deadline have the best chance at receiving need-based financial aid from colleges and universities, Scott said.
Scott said Alabama employers are seeking skilled workers to step into jobs that increasingly utilize technology skills. Training students for these jobs is a benefit to both families and communities, Scott said.
“If we embrace a college-going culture, we have an opportunity for families to have bigger incomes and communities to be better off,” she said. “But we have to figure out how every student can be college material and we must also broaden our definition of what college is.”
Fast Facts about FAFSA
1, FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
2. The FAFSA is the form required at all colleges — public and private — that accept and award federal aid.
3. The FAFSA provides your college financial aid officers with the information they need to create your financial aid package.
4. The FAFSA can be completed online at www.fafsa.ed.gov.
5. The majority of colleges also use the FAFSA to determine who qualifies for state and institutional need-based aid.
6. You can file your FAFSA as early as Oct. 1 of the year prior to your first year in college.
7. The 2017–2018 FAFSA requires 2015 tax data.
8. There is no income cutoff to qualify for federal student aid. You can submit the FAFSA to schools you are considering.
9. Application and acceptance to the college is not required to put the school on your list.
10. FAFSA questions and concerns should be directed to the financial aid office of the school you attend or are planning to attend, not to the U.S. Department of Education.
For more information about the FAFSA, go to www.cashforcollegealabama.org.
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