FAFSA Tips to Help Nontraditional Students Pay for College

You’re never too old to qualify for federal official m 1tary aid, and some scholarships atomic number 18 reserved for sure-enough(a) students.

Pursuing a college stratum after a hiatus from academia can be intimidating, and students often face hurdles before they set root word on campus.

 

Challenges can include choosing whether to go full-time or part-time; attend classes in-person or online; and study business, nursing, malefactor justice, computer science, or one of hundreds of other majors.

One decision that should be an automatic "Yes," even for so-called nontraditional students—those 25 and older—is whether to fill out the Free Application for Federal pupil Aid.

The FAFSA uses a variety of data, including income and other monetary assets, to determine how much(prenominal) funds a student is expected to contribute to his or her education. For traditional students, the Department of Education uses parental income to determine eligibility for federal loans, as well as need-based grants and scholarships.

Starting at age 24, students are evaluated based on their own earnings and may be eligible for additional funding—often empty money that does not need to be repaid—than those who took a more unoriginal collegiate path.

Here are three things older students should know more or less the FASFA.

1. It's not the FAFSA you remember. If it's been decades since you applied for financial aid, you're in for a treat. The free federal application no longer requires mounds of paperwork. Students can cede time, and often headaches, by completing the online FAFSA application, which can import financial data directly from the IRS database.

"It's simple, safe, and the processing time is very short," says Zhanna Golster, financial aid director at Notre Dame of Maryland University.

It's alike free, stresses Golster, who says some NDMU students—about 60 percent of whom are 25 or older—mistakenly go to fafsa.com, which charges a fee, alternatively of fafsa.gov.

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financial aid officers can walk applicants with the online process, and students who prefer something more familiar can still file cabinet a paper FAFSA.

2. It's more than loans. Don't bypass the FAFSA, even if you film the financial resources to give way tuition without taking out loans. Financial aid awards can include federal and state-specific scholarships and grants that students don't need to pay back.

Filing your FAFSA early can help ensure you meet any(prenominal) scholarship deadlines. Students are not obligated to accept any of the loans, scholarships, or grants they are offered.

3. Your award is not set in stone. FAFSA awards are based on an applicant's income from the previous year, but trustworthy life events can alter a student's financial circumstances.

" decouple is one that comes up a lot … or when one of their children goes to college, potentially that could change what they're awarded," says Kristine Bureau, assistant director of compliance in the financial aid office at Regis University in Colorado. "As an undergraduate student, they might qualify for more need-based funding."

Materials taken from US News