3 FAFSA secrets to help you get the most financial aid - YouTube

hey everyone I'm Tina otherwise known as the FAFSA  guru and I'm excited to share three FAFSA secrets  

with you today that can get you more financial aid  before I do that I just want to give you a little  

bit of background information about me I went into  business for myself a couple of years ago as an  

educational consultant after working in the field  of higher education for over 20 years in the area  

of admissions and financial aid and student  advising and I saw a really big gap between  

student and family needs for college planning  help and what was actually out there available  

for services most educational consultants charge  quite a bit in fees and you have to sign up for  

hefty packages to get any kind of guidance so  what I wanted to do is offer more affordable  

services for the average family that doesn't want  to sign on for hundreds of dollars of services so  

I created the FAFSA guru and what I do is one on  one college planning guidance and FAFSA assistance  

for students and families based on whatever their  new needs are so this could be filling out a FAFSA  

form could be completing a college application  guiding them through the process whatever their  

needs are I can help them with and they can kind  of piece it together and work with me as they go  

so they don't have to sign on for any expensive  package so now that I told you a little bit about  

me let's talk about the three secrets the first  is in order to access the most financial aid it  

is crucial that you fill out the FAFSA as early as  possible the nude date for this year the 2018-2019  

FAFSA is October 1st normally it's been January  but this year they're doing October 1st that is  

the earliest that you can file the FAFSA if you or  your child are planning on starting college July  

30th 2018 or after so with financial aid it's  kind of like the early bird gets too long the  

earlier you apply and fill out the FAFSA the  more money you can get federal financial aid  

tends to deplete as time goes on so that's secret  number one secret number two if you are a parent  

and you are helping your child fill out the FAFSA  because they're going off to college and they have  

money in their bank accounts they have assets  money that maybe they've saved or they've been  

given to help them pay for college you want to  transfer the money from their account into your  

account because FAFSA calculations expect that  any asset students have they can contribute 20%  

of that money towards their college education  versus about five point six four percent of  

parent assets so it would be wise to transfer  money from their savings accounts into your  

accounts to kind of protect a little bit more of  that money and the nice thing for you parents in  

terms of assets the home that you live in is  not counted nor is retirement so they're not  

going to look at either of those things as assets  and then third the last secret for accessing more  

financial aid is that you can actually appeal your  award letter that the college gives to you not a  

lot of people know this so let's say you or your  student gets the financial aid award letter back  

from the college and it's just not enough money to  help pay for their needs you can actually write a  

letter to the financial aid office appealing  your financial aid award now typically this  

is ideal if you have extenuating circumstances  that are not reported on the FAFSA FAFSA just  

asks a lot of basic financial information and they  don't really dig deeper in terms of you know was  

a parent or or the student laid off was there  a big financial circumstance that happened in  

the family that is not reported on the FAFSA so  especially if you have extenuating circumstances  

appealing that financial aid award letter is  crucial you just simply just send a letter to  

the financial aid office and offer any supporting  documentation you can if there's been a change or  

a reduction in income and if there has been then a  lot most financial aid offices actually set aside  

a certain pool of money specifically for people  who appeal their financial aid awards so that's  

the third secret I hope you find those helpful  and I just want to share with you that I'm going  

to be offering a webinar FAFSA webinar on Sunday  October 1st at 7 p.m. October 1st remember is the  

day that you can begin filling out the FAFSA so  I'm going to be offering a webinar it's only 50  

dollars and I'm going to sit down with you and  go over the whole process of applying for an  

FSA ID for yourself and your child that's the ID  that you need to actually complete a FAFSA online  

and then I'm going to go through the FAFSA with  you step-by-step page by page and kind of guide  

you through the process of filling it out so you  can sit down with your taxes and at your computer  

and you can actually fill it out during my webinar  it's a great value I'm only charging fifty dollars  

for this for the next week and then it jumps up  to a hundred dollars so if you are interested  

in signing up for that you can click the link  below and additionally my contact information  

is also below I do a lot of one-on-one coaching  with students and families based on your needs  

and you can get in touch with me and I'd be  happy to set something up for you you can find  

me on Facebook the FAFSA guru and I'm currently  working on my website so thanks for listening  

and I hope you found these secrets really helpful  and hope to see a lot of you at my webinar Thanks