Yay for you if you will be completing the FAFSA this year (as opposed to previous years).  The Scholarship Lady is psyched about the streamlined FAFSA.  Based on the changes, I predict a long-term reduction in parent and student stress, more familial bliss, more time to spend on the better things in life and more opportunities for college-bound students.  Wait, what’s the FAFSA, you ask?  The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).  If you need money for college, completing the FAFSA is in your best interest and nearly all students –98%–complete it online.  I participated in a training yesterday and here are highlights and changes of how the FAFSA has improved:

1. New url for the site:  www.fafsa.gov.  The old url still works but this is a shorter address in hopes of preventing students from going to “un”official sites that charge a fee to complete the FAFSA for you.  NEVER pay a fee to complete the FAFSA.  It’s free.

2. Color coded tabs for student and parent sections so it is clear who fills in the required information.  Parents = purple.  Students = Blue.

3. More detailed information such as graduation and retention rates of the colleges you select.  Hey, you should know what you are paying for, right?

4. Fewer questions, based on the profile you enter.  For example, if you are not married, you will not see the questions about married students.  That makes sense and saves you time.

5. More help functions that are tailored to you and how you answer the questions.

6. Removal of Veteran’s benefits questions because they no longer affect eligibility for other federal aid (could change in the future – don’t know)

7. Quick, live estimate of Pell Grant eligibility, based on the information your provide.  No matter waiting and wondering.

8. Virtual keyboard and scrambled SS# to better protect your identity.

9.  Status bars/indicators so you know where you are in the process.

10. Fewer questions about assets for low-income students…again, that makes sense.

11. Transfer (pre-population) of parent information to a sibling’s application.

12. Skip or re-direct on questions about homeless students or dependent students whose parents refuse to provide financial information.

13.  Revised definitions of homeless, degree of homelessness, independent status, dislocated workers (including dislocated homemaker, which is an extremely important job!) to identify and expand financial aid opportunities for more people.

14. Matching process through Department of Defense for additional aid for students (dependents) who had a parent killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since 9/11/01.

15.  Coming in Summer 2010….drumroll please….IRS data retrieval tool to lift information from your parents’ tax forms and SAVE YOU TIME!!!

Sources:  Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corp Training and ed.gov bloghttp://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/2010/01/a-simpler-application-for-student-aid/

Whew.  I’m tired.  I was in Indianapolis last week at the National Scholarship Providers Association where I gave two presentations:  “Scholarships 101 for Counselors” and “More Than Money:  Creating Value-Added Scholarship Programs.”  While I was on the agenda to share information from my book and from my consulting work I LEARNED so much from all of the other professionals there.   I had personal conversations with Mark Kantrowitz from www.Finaid.org, Kevin and Dan from www.scholarships.com, Mick and Dave fromwww.zinch.com, and dozens of other professionals.

Here is what you should know:

• The student loan market is volatile right now and several lenders have pulled out or created more stringent lending guidelines.  This will affect people with lower credit scores more than people with high credit scores.  Read a good explanation at www.finaid.org/creditcrisis and go to the bottom of the article for a real-world summary.
• The best scholarship search sites have strong relationships with funders and they actively recruit scholarship sponsors to post on their site, instead of relying on a generic database.  This is a lot of extra work for them but it provides better information for you the student.  Scholarships.com has done this.
• Getting colleges to understand the full background of a student is very difficult through a typical paper or online application.   Using photos, pdfs, audio or videos can provide colleges with a glimpse of the real you.  Through the online profile functions at www.zinch.com you can upload all of your details and then colleges (more than 600 of them) can check you out.  The bonus?  It’s free to you, with little-to-no ads, except ads for scholarships!

I learned much more that I will share in another post.  Good luck!