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Be very careful when filing your FAFSA. Just about anyone can fill out a FAFSA form. However, there’s still a difference when you file your FAFSA with or without proper research.
You need to know all of the “loopholes” that are associated with accurate FAFSA filing. It’s sometime easy not to know what the FAFSA is really asking you.
For Example: There’s a question in both the student’s section and the parent’s section that reads: Payments to tax-deferred pension and savings plans (or 401k, 403b, etc).
All that they’re asking you for is a year to date balance. A lot of people haphazardly put their entire 401k balances in that space. Your 401k balance is exempt from the financial aid formulas.
This happens all of the time. Put your YTD only in this space. Because your 401k YTD is almost always lower than your 401k total invested balance, and besides, that’s all that they’re asking you for anyway. To put anything other than your YTD is going to count against you pretty hard and it would lower your aid eligibility possibly by thousands of dollars.
If you are submitting your own FAFSA, please be aware of what the form is asking you at all times. This is just one of several things to watch out for.
Proper research with college planning is essential. Knowing more gets you more!
FAFSA filing FREE with 1 hr. consultation
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