File Your FAFSA (As Early As You Can)
On Sept. 14, 2015, President Obama announced significant changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) process that will impact millions of students seeking financial aid.
One of those changes was to move the start date for accepting the form to October 1 of the year prior to the academic year in which a student plans to enter college. In other words, a student wishing to attend college in the 2022-2023 school year (in which classes generally begin in August 2022) can complete and submit the FAFSA between Oct. 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022 using federal tax information from 2020.
The form is submitted online via a secure website managed by the US Department of Education. This site is designed to make it easy to complete the application for aid. Before starting your FAFSA, you can review the process by reading up on Answers to Common FAFSA Questions. Another good resource for first time FAFSA filers or renewing students are these helpful Financial Aid TV videos:
How the FAFSA benefits students (and parents):
- Tax information has already been filed with the IRS since FAFSA is asking for income from tax year of 2020 for 2022-23.
- You will be able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, which inserts some tax return info for your convenience.
- With 3 months to complete it, you don't have pressure to rush to complete the FAFSA - however, the sooner you do it, the better!
- Students new to Alvernia University will receive their financial aid packages earlier. This means more time to review it & make informed decisions.
Feel free to contact the Alvernia Office of Student Financial Services at 610-796-8201 or email us with financial aid questions. The below video is also a helpful resource to learn more about filing your FAFSA
