The New FSA ID and What You Need to Know
Parents:
While your high school senior has been quite busy with applications and essays, I’ve been compiling the latest and greatest ‘must know’ information regarding financial aid. In other words, it’s your turn to be overwhelmed.
Here’s what you need to know:
The FAFSA PIN is a thing of the past. The Feds are trying to make things a bit more secure so they’ve come up with the new and improved FSA ID. You can create an FSA ID here. Create an FSA ID now.
The FSA ID process consists of three main steps:
1. Enter your log-in information.
- Provide your e-mail address, a unique username, and password, and verify that you are at least 13 years old.
2. Enter your personal information.
- Provide your Social Security number, name, and date of birth.
3. Include your mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, and language preference.
- For security purposes, provide answers to five challenge questions.
- Submit your FSA ID information.
- Agree to the terms and conditions.
- Verify your e-mail address. (This is optional, but helpful. By verifying your e-mail address, you can use your e-mail address as your username when logging into certain ED websites. This verification also allows you to retrieve your username or reset your password without answering challenge questions.)
Do parents need FSA IDs?
Yes, a dependent student will need to have one of his or her legal parents sign the student’s FAFSA, so the parent needs an FSA ID as well. Find out which parent’s information should be listed on the FAFSA. It’s important to understand that the student and the parent may not share an FSA ID: Your FSA ID is your signature, so it has to be unique to you.
As most of you know, I’m a proponent of being well-informed and engaging in transparent conversations. My hope is that you and your child have had several discussions regarding the cost of college. Now is the time to get a grip on what your “projected” costs will be. In just one short year, you will be financing higher ed for your student; let’s minimize the shock.
There are several ways to obtain a fairly accurate idea of just how painful this is going to be.
1. College Affordability Shaper on Guided Path will tell you, based on your data input, whether your family will likely qualify for any need-based aid. Either way, you’ll be armed to make intelligent decisions, having established this information.
2. Fafsa4caster. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/estimate
This nifty, little tool is a ‘dry run’ for completing the FAFSA. Remember, you’ve got to be locked and loaded to file the FAFSA, as close to January 1, 2016, as is humanly possible. Completing the fafsa4caster not only makes filing the actual FASA easier, but it will inform you of your EFC (Estimated Family Contribution).
3. Net-Price Calculator.
Go to the search bar of any college your student is applying to and type in ”Net Price Calculator”. This ‘tool’ can be found on the web site of virtually every college and university in the US. It is intended to provide net price information to students and their families, based on a student’s individual circumstances. Colleges and universities have the choice to use the Department of Education’s Net Price Calculator template or to use their own customized calculator that includes, at a minimum, the same elements as the Department’s template.
Sounds terrific, but here’s the rub – these calculators are not terribly accurate. This will make sense, once you tried a few. As my friend, esteemed colleague and nationally recognized college expert, Lynn O’ Shaughnessy ( www.thecollegesolution.com ) says, if the Net-Price Calculator asks few questions and it takes just a few minutes to complete, then the net price information probably isn’t going to be too accurate. If the form takes an hour to complete and asks lots of questions, you’ve got a better chance for accuracy.
This calculator should allow students to calculate an estimated net price of attendance at an institution (defined as cost of attendance minus grant and scholarship aid) based on what similar students paid in
Minimum Required Elements
Institutions that choose to customize or build their own net price calculator must include, at a minimum, the following input and output elements:
Input elements must include:
- Data elements to approximate the student’s Expected Family Contribution (EFC), such as income, number in family, and dependency status or factors that estimate dependency status*
*An institution may use either Federal Methodology or Institutional Methodology to approximate the student’s EFC.
Output elements must include:
- Estimated total cost of attendance;
- Estimated tuition and fees;
- Estimated room and board;
- Estimated books and supplies;
- Estimated other expenses (personal expenses, transportation, etc.);
- Estimated total grant aid;
- Estimated net price;
- Percent of the cohort (full-time, first-time students) that received grant aid; and
- Caveats and disclaimers, as indicated in the HEA.
4. The CSS Profile (College Scholarship Service) https://student.collegeboard.org/css-financial-aid-profile
https://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/PROFILE_Student_Guide.pdf
The PROFILE is an online application that collects information used by certain colleges and scholarship programs to award institutional aid funds. (All federal funds are awarded based on the FAFSA.) Some colleges may require additional information, such as tax returns or an institutional application. If parents are divorced, some colleges will also require the noncustodial parent to complete the Noncustodial PROFILE.
