FAFSA Tips

I ran across some information about filling out the FAFSA from this site www.fafsaonline.com. One thing that was interesting was to fill out the FAFSA on January 1st before you apply for scholarships. If you receive a scholarship prior to filling out the FAFSA, it will count against  you for the upcoming year. The site did mention that if you should make the scholarships a priority and if you have to submit an application before the FAFSA is done, you should do so.

There is also a site that you can use to estimate what results you'll receive when filling out the FAFSA. It is at http://studentaid.ed.gov/fafsa/estimate.

FAFSA Tips

I ran across a website that has some good information on ways adjust your personal holdings in order to maximize the amount that you could receive in financial aid. They seem to be smart moves that you can make and there's nothing unethical about the tips. The website is http://www.finaid.org/fafsa/maximize.phtml

I read an article from Kiplinger's magazine about the American Opportunity Credit.  It looks like the credit was scheduled to expire in 2012 but it has been extended through 2017. To qualify, your AGI must be less than $90000 if you're single or $180000 if you're married. The credit can be worth up to $2500.00 per student for each of the first four years of school. This will definitely be something to keep in mind.

Here is the link to the IRS site : American Opportunity Credit

College Becoming A Reality

Today was the last day of my daughter's junior year of high school and the first day of my "Paying for College" ulcer. I've known for a long time that our daughter and son would eventually go to college but it always seemed such a long way off. I can't believe it will be a reality one year from now. She doesn't have a specific college picked out yet, that is something we'll be working on over the summer. We also need to work on how to pay for her education. This blog will be the journey that our family takes as we wade through the process of finding and applying to a school, filling out the FAFSA form, applying for scholarships and all the decisions we will have to make.

Recently, in talking to one of her teachers, we received some good advice. He said for her to apply for all the scholarships that she can. He also said that the job of the college financial advisors is to help kids get any available money that they can so that they can spend that money at their school. This makes a lot of sense and we'll have to tap into this resource as we get further down the road.

Now I'll be learning as much as I can about the whole "applying and paying for college" process. The more I know, the better we'll be. I want her to be able to go to the school that she thinks would fit her the best but we have to be smart about it since we can't just give her a blank check. We'll do this together and I'm sure we'll figure it out. It should be a fun ride.