According to the Department of Education, in order to make the financial aid application available to more people, FAFSA has released the myStudentAid app. 

FAFSA is a form seniors and their families fill out in order to make college more affordable. 

Director of College Counseling Mrs. Anne Katz said, “FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It’s the form the federal government uses to determine how much aid from the government a student qualifies for. A student’s parents have to input their tax information and a student does as well if they work and filed tax information. The federal government has a formula that they use.

“They put all that information into the formula and then a number comes out at the end which is called the estimated family contribution or EFC. That’s the number that the federal government determines that a family is able contribute to a student’s education.

“Then that information goes out to the schools that the student has applied to and the school takes that number and decides what financial aid package they can put together for them.”

The app eases some obstacles families experience. 

Katz said,“The benefits of the having an app is it’s more accessible. Everyone always has their phones with them all the time, so you can do the FAFSA whenever it’s convenient for you. Some people don’t have a computer, so having an app makes it easier to complete. It removes a barrier for some people to complete the FAFSA and makes it seem not as overwhelming.”

If a senior does not think she qualifies for FAFSA, she should apply anyway. 

Katz said, “We always recommend that everyone fill it out their first year of college for a couple of reasons. One: because to get any loans from the federal government you have to fill it out. Some schools in order to get work study money, to work on campus and get money, they have to fill out the FAFSA. Some schools require it for scholarships.” 

“It’s also a safety policies, so let’s say one parent dies and you lose all of the income from that parent. If you didn’t meet the original FAFSA deadline and that happens before the school year starts you can lose access to financial aid money that you would’ve received otherwise.”