Shortcut to finding out how much the gov’t expects you to pay for college

College is a strange purchase, one of the few where you don’t know the final price until after you’ve done all the work. Imagine shopping for a home the way most people shop for college. You’d spend months driving (or flying) all over looking at houses that were in a certain neighborhood or had certain amenities.…

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Earlier FAFSA Submission Date Offers Students Better Chance At Aid

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CIT’s Chris Wills was featured on WCCO TV sharing advice on the new October 1 FAFSA filing date. Among his suggestions: Families should file as close to the Oct. 1 date as possible because some of the financial aid is first come, first served. All families should complete the FAFSA, regardless of how much money they…

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New FAFSA rules help grandparents contribute

With future FAFSA forms now using tax returns from two years prior (known as “prior prior” in the college world), that adds another year that family members can help pay for college without it negatively affecting financial aid eligibility. First, some quick background: The three main factors used to calculate financial aid eligibility are Non-retirement…

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11 Common FAFSA mistakes

We recommend families always complete the FAFSA because you need it to receive any need-based aid, and even if you don’t qualify for financial aid based on your income, some colleges award merit aid (sometimes a few thousand dollars) just for completing it. With some recent changes to the FAFSA, the US Dept of Education recently shared a…

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5 last chance strategies for parents of juniors

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With the recent change in the FAFSA, this year’s junior class will be the first to use tax information from 2 years prior to their year of HS graduation, as opposed to the current 1 year. In other words, starting with 2017 HS grads, a family’s tax information from 2015 — or the spring of…

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