Admission News

What You Should Include on Your FAFSA Application

college-basics-planning-college
Written by CB Experts

Thanks, Jonelle Marte, for your article on the February 13/14, 2010, in The Wall Street Journal Sunday.

Marte has listed some oft-made mistakes you can make when applying for financial aid. Collegebasics thinks it’s important to repeat some of her warnings.

  • When you’re asked to list investments, don’t factor in your retirement accounts. These can include, IRAs and Roths, your 401 K plans, and your pension fund accumulation.
  • If you own more than 50% of a small business or if you own a business which has less than 100 full-time employees, there is no need to factor in the value of your business.
  • Although real estate assets have to be included, the home you live in does not have to be included as a real estate asset.

These are excellent pieces of advice that can help you get better financial aid packages, but Marte offers one more good directive. On your FAFSA application make sure you use your legal name and that it matches the name you use with the Social Security Administration to avoid paper processing delays!

For more help with filling our your Financial Aid application see Collegebasics’ article on Looking for Financial Aid Step-by-step.

About the author

CB Experts

Content created by retired College Admissions consultants.