| AwardYear: 1997-1998 Edition: PostSecondary Part: 2 - - The application process for financial aid SectionNumber: SectionTitle: How to apply PageNumbers: 21-23 How to apply Students apply for federal student aid by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), either electronically or on paper. Students must file FAFSAs even if they are only applying for a Federal Direct Loan or a Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL). To complete the FAFSA, students will need copies of their income tax returns (and their parents' returns), W-2 forms, current bank statements, and records of any stocks, bonds, and other investments and assets used in completing the FAFSA. A student does not have to pay a fee if he or she fills out only the FAFSA. However, a student may be required to fill out additional questions on a separate form in order to be considered for some state or institutional aid, and a fee may be charged for processing these additional questions. Check with your state agency to find out if it requires applicants to submit separate forms to receive state aid. (Note that some states do use FAFSA data to award aid.) Included with the 1997-98 FAFSA is a postcard that students can complete and return to the processor with their completed application if they wish to be notified when their application was received. The postcard will be date stamped by the processor and returned to the student. (Please note that the postcard is not prepaid; each student must remember to affix a postage stamp to his or her postcard.) Students may apply for aid electronically through the Electronic Data Exchange (EDE) or FAFSA Express. A student who files through EDE should first complete a paper FAFSA to take to the school. For institutions or schools that participate, EDE allows financial aid administrators to enter electronically the data required for the FAFSA. After the financial aid administrator reviews the entered data, the information is sent electronically to the central processing system (CPS). The CPS then processes the data and sends the school an electronic ISIR and the student a one-part SAR Information Acknowledgement containing the student's information and the results of the eligibility calculation. Bear in mind that if the student applies through the EDE system, you must obtain the student's signature on a completed paper application or on the "echo document" printed through EDE, and you must keep the signed document in your files even if the student does not receive federal student aid or does not attend your institution. FAFSA Express allows students to apply electronically without going to a school to use EDE; it requires only an IBM compatible computer with a Windows operating system and a modem. FAFSA Express is designed to be the easiest and fastest way to apply for federal student aid. If a student files using FAFSA Express, he or she transmits the application data to the CPS via modem. If a printer is available, the student should print, sign, and mail a signature page to the FAFSA processor. The CPS processes the data and sends the student a SAR. If a signature page is not sent within 14 calendar days of FAFSA receipt, the student will receive a "Reject 16" SAR in the mail. The SAR must then be signed and returned to the FAFSA processor. (Institutions and states will receive ISIRs for Reject 16 records.) Copies of the 1997-98 FAFSA Express program were mailed to libraries, postsecondary schools, and high schools in late December 1996. The program can be ordered by calling 1-800-801-0576. Additional information about FAFSA Express is available by calling this number. Also, beginning late December 1996, students, parents, and financial aid administrators are able to download the FAFSA Express software from the Department's World Wide Web site at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/index.html. Note that beginning in 1997-98, each student who files using FAFSA Express may save his or her data to a diskette (separate from the diskette containing the FAFSA Express program); the student will not be able to save this personal data to the computer's hard drive. Previously, students were not able to save this data, due to privacy concerns. Finally, note that some students will not have to complete an entire FAFSA, but rather can use a Renewal FAFSA, preprinted with last year's data, and simply change or add information as needed. (Photocopies of Renewal Applications and of Student Aid Reports cannot be processed, due to the requirements of image scanning technology.) For 1997-98, the CPS will mail Renewal Applications to students who applied for federal student aid in 1996-97 and who meet certain conditions--for instance, their Social Security Numbers and addresses were valid, they were not in default, and so forth. These students must provide new financial and some nonfinancial information on the Renewal FAFSA but can leave other information the same if it has not changed. These students will receive Renewal Applications in the mail or from their schools between December 1996 and January 1997. (The CPS will print and mail Renewal Applications only to those students whose records were not requested by a school.) In the fall of each year, a school may request that Renewal Applications for some or all of the students who listed that school on their applications for the previous year be printed by the CPS and mailed in bulk to the school. (The school is then responsible for distributing the Renewal Applications to the students.) There will now be a wider window of time for schools to request and receive bulk mailings of Renewal Applications. The schedule of activities for requesting Renewal Applications was provided in Action Letter #1 (September 1996). Alternatively, schools participating in EDE may request the electronic Renewal Application records for their students at any time during the school year. The school must then print out Renewal Applications and provide them to students, and must also enter and transmit the completed Renewal Application data to the CPS through EDE. To promote the continued growth of the Renewal Application, the Department has streamlined the process for 1997-98. Schools will be able to request selected individual records or all students by specific grade levels. Institutions or third-party servicers that serve as a destination point and do Renewal Application processing for multiple schools will be able to request all applications for all institutions or all records for specific institutions. The Renewal Application has a simplified layout for 1997-98; for example, it now has a two-column layout rather than a three-column one, and response fields now closely match the ovals on the FAFSA. For questions about Renewal Applications, please call CPS Customer Service at (319) 339-6642. Dear Colleague Letters and Action Letters sent to schools each year provide further information on deadlines and procedures. If you need technical information, check the system updates and technical guidance announcements that are regularly posted on the SFA Bulletin Board System (BBS). The Bulletin Board information can be searched, viewed, downloaded, or printed and contains all currently published Dear Colleague Letters, Title IV Federal Registers, the SFA Handbook, and SFA Announcements. Those with Internet access can log on to the BBS at http://sfa.ed.gov. To order free BBS software for dial-in access, please call 1-800-433-7327. |