Archive for the 'Student Loans' Category

Students and parents, if you’re attending a US college, it’s to fill out your FAFSA. If you’re not all too familiar with the form and what it’s all about, it’s a free application for federal student aid. The application is used to determine the amount of money you’ll be given to go towards your college education. Just about every single US college utilizes the FAFSA system.

There are roughly 14 million students receiving over $80 billion in financial aid yearly.

How is the FAFSA organized? There are five parts: information about the student, information about the student’s dependency status, information about the parents of the student, financial information about the student, and a list of schools that should receive the FAFSA information (similar to providing your college with your SAT/ACT scores).

There are two ways to apply: online or by mail. While the federal deadline is June 30th, April 15 (tax time) is literally right around the corner and some states require this form to be filled out prior to then. Ideally, you should have this form filled out closer to February, but this is a last call reminder in case you were unable to do it then.

The FAFSA form can be filled out here.

College is expensive, but don’t get drawn into any scams. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If you thought the Nigerian scams were bad, college scholarship scammers convince innocent families that they have billions of dollars of private funding — but they do not. Before you proceed handing over your financial information, make sure to check the authenticity of these scholarship foundations to see if they’re indeed reputable.

Here are some telltale signs that your scholarship may be fraudulent:

• Is the scholarship funding guaranteed — or your money back?
• Is the scholarship one of a kind? Are there other programs like it around? If it offers a unique selling proposition, it could be dangerous.
• Are you required to do anything besides paperwork? If they promise to do all the work, it may be sketchy.
• Is it free? Scholarships shouldn’t cost you anything.
• Are they asking for personal information? If you’re being asked for your checking account or credit card number, this is a sign of trouble. Don’t give in!

If in doubt, don’t proceed. Call the National Fraud Information Center at 1-800-876-7060. For more information, check out the FinAid list on how to identify scholarship scams. Keep in mind their very first sentence: if you have to pay money to get money, it’s probably a scam.