College Admission Help

College Grants and Aid Applications Can Consume A Lot Of Time

By Cathy Spaulding
Phoenix Staff Writer


This year, millions must gather their W-2 forms, bank statements, their investment documents, their mortgage information, their income records and fill out the daunting six-page form.
It’s not their income tax forms, but the government application they must complete to help get their children into college. Parents or students must fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, to apply for federal student aid or to apply for most state and college financial aid.
“It seems like it takes a long time,” said Martha Giles, mother of a college-bound Hilldale High School senior. “You have to put in all your sources of income, all your child’s sources of income. You have to answer if your child has ever been separated from you or emancipated. They have 10 different variations of that question. It kind of wears you out.”
Financial aid officials say the FAFSA’s length can be intimidating for some parents, but all the questions are needed to ensure that a variety of students are helped.
“The biggest problem is getting parents to actually sit down and actually fill out the form,” said Oktaha High School Counselor Kathy Barrett. “Because you have to fill out FAFSA in order to get scholarships, a lot of the questions are income-based.
Financial aid is complex, said Angela Caddell, director of communications and financial assistance for the Oklahoma Guaranteed Student Loan Program. “How eligibility is determined is sorted out by the questions. It’s large because individual circumstances vary. They want to make sure all the contingencies are answered.”
“Anything you can think of is asked in the questionnaire,” said Hilldale High School senior Stephen Bias, who is waiting to fill out his FAFSA. He said early in March that he was waiting to get tax returns from his father so he can finish the information and get it in.
“Some families opt out of completing the FAFSA and charge college expenses to credit cards or take out private education loans before exhausting all federal loan options, which isn’t an ideal approach,” said Mary Mowdy, executive director of Oklahoma Guaranteed Student Loan Program, in a media release. “Federal student loans issued through the Federal Family Education Loan Program have lower interest rates, flexible repayment plans and important deferment, forbearance and loan forgiveness benefits that credit cards and ‘private’ or ‘alternative’ loans don’t offer.”
Muskogee High School College and Career Center coordinator Susan Roberts said the form is not that complicated.
“You just have to do income preparation,” she said. “A lot of people take it to their tax people. There are so many pages it looks like it would be intimidating.”
However, Congress is working to simplify FAFSA, said Shelly Dreadfulwater, assistant director of financial services at Northeastern State University. “They’re deciding that many questions they have now aren’t needed.”
She said the FAFSA form “changes a bit from year to year.”
Dreadfulwater said NSU held workshops on how to fill out the form in January and February.
The early deadline some colleges place on scholarship applications also hampers FAFSA applications.
“It’s kind of hard because I don’t file my taxes until late, so I just have to estimate and correct it later,” Giles said.



College Grants and Aid Applications Can Consume A Lot Of Time