The Daily Gamecock

Major changes coming to FAFSA

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The Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2017-18 academic year is available for submission starting this Saturday.

Under changes announced by the Obama administration last September, future FAFSA forms can be submitted four months earlier and will take into account family income from two calendar years prior to submission, rather than the current single calendar year. Thus, FAFSA applications submitted for the 2017-18 school year become available Saturday, Oct. 1, and consider income figures for 2015.

In previous years, the FAFSA form became available after Jan. 1 of the calendar year in which the academic year begins and took into account tax information filed the previous year. For example, FAFSA forms submitted for the 2016-17 academic year were accepted beginning on Jan. 1, 2016, and used 2015 income figures.

Joseph Derrick, director of student financial aid and scholarships at USC, explained that there are advantages to the new system.

“It gives folks an opportunity to fill out their FAFSA much earlier, for us to get it earlier and start working with students to get aid packages in place,” Derrick said.

Regarding the switch to two-year-old tax information, Derrick said it “makes it much more likely that students and parents will have completed that tax return and will be able to use that tool to import their information automatically into the FAFSA.” 

The intent, Derrick says, is to improve the accuracy with which income figures are reported. In previous years, students and their families had to estimate annual income on FAFSA forms if their tax returns had not yet been filed. The FAFSA website still provides a calculator specifically for this purpose.

Income earned in 2016 will not affect FAFSA filings until the 2018-19 academic year.

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