If you’re looking for an estimate of what your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be and how much aid you or your student may be eligible for than the Department of Education has a great tool called FAFSA4caster.
FAFSA4caster determines what type of federal aid (grants, work study, and loans) the student may be eligible to receive and provides an estimated award for each.
It will probably take 15 minutes to complete and you will need the following things handy before you begin: Social Security number, W-2 forms, bank statements and business and mortgage information.
I found the tool most helpful. (Click here) to check it out.
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The Department of Education has published a draft (subject to changes) copy of the 2009-2010 FAFSA for public review. Lots of changes - this is a significantly different FAFSA than in previous years, with things like the worksheets completely gone. Here’s a comprehensive list of changes.
Summary of Changes 2009-2010 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
Colors - The 2009-2010 FAFSA colors are green for student information and purple for parent information.
Year References - All year references have been incremented by one year.
Design - The design and layout of the FAFSA have changed. The application pages are numbered five through ten. The Notes pages are numbered one through three. The ‘What is the FAFSA?’ (Frequently asked questions) information is incorporated into the booklet as page four. As in previous years, a return envelope is included.
Worksheets incorporated into the application — The Worksheets page has been eliminated (page 5 of the 2008-2009 FAFSA) and the majority of the Worksheets data elements have been incorporated into the application (page 7 of the 2009-2010 FAFSA). The data elements are incorporated as follows:
Worksheet A – Deleted (See ‘Data Elements Deleted’ below)
Worksheet B – Becomes question 47 (student) and question 95 (parents)
Worksheet C – Becomes question 46 (student) and question 94 (parents)
Data Elements added - The most significant changes include the expansion of the dependency criteria (page 7) to designate individuals who were in foster care (question 55); emancipated minors (question 56) or minors in legal guardianship (question 57); and individuals that have been verified as an unaccompanied youth who are homeless children or youth or are at risk of homelessness (question 58-60) as independent students for FAFSA/Title IV, HEA program assistance purposes.
Other changes include:
Adding the TEACH Grant question to the paper FAFSA (question 32);
Reformatting the veterans education benefit questions to ask whether the applicant received benefits (question 44) and to indicate what type of benefits were received (question 45)
Adding a field to allow parents to provide an email address (question 71);
Adding ‘dislocated worker’ to the list of criteria that could qualify an applicant for the Simplified Needs Test and or Automatic Zero EFC (question 85);
Increasing the time period for measuring Federal means-tested benefits from 12 months to 24 months (Steps Four & Five of the FAFSA).
Data Elements deleted –
Two data elements have been deleted from question 47 (formerly Worksheet B). They are ‘Foreign income exclusion…” and “Credit for federal tax on special fuels…”.
Worksheet A is deleted, including the following four data elements:
Earned income credit from IRS Form 1040;
Additional child tax credit from IRS Form 1040;
Welfare benefits, including TANF;
Social Security benefits received, that were not taxed (such as SSI)
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