Most high school students have heard of the FAFSA. While there is name recognition, most do not know the minutiae of the FAFSA.

FAFSA stands for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It was created through the Higher Education Act of 1965. In 1997, FAFSA on the web was introduced making 2017 the 20 year anniversary.  It is a program offered by the US Department of Education and provides over $150 billion a year of federal aid for college students. Students might be eligible for federal aid through the FAFSA but it is also used by universities to determine the amount of aid you can receive. There are a few things you need when signing up for the FAFSA.

The first things you need when filling out the FAFSA are yours parents or guardians and 45 minutes to an hour of time. Once you have these covered the other requirements are: your social security number, 2015 Federal tax return, your parent’s (and/or your) W-2, FSA ID and at least one college you are considering attending.

Now all of this technical jargon might sound daunting if you have never filled out the FAFSA before, but it is all simple to understand. The requirement of a 2015 tax return is new for the FAFSA this year. This is due to the new, earlier opening date for the FAFSA, Oct. 1, 2017. According to Investopedia.com, “The W-2 form is the form that an employer must send to an employee and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) at the end of the year. The W-2 form reports an employee’s annual wages and the amount of taxes withheld from his or her paycheck.”

The FSA ID, or Federal Student Aid identification is your personal ID that you and your parent create to fill out the FAFSA and other Federal aid websites. This ID is used by the Department of Education to confirm your identity. In the FAFSA the FSA is used to electronically sign documents requiring your signature. Along with the FSA ID your driver’s license number is used to futher solidify that you are in fact who you say you are. The FSA ID is not required if you are completing the FAFSA by hand.

The FAFSA website provides a PDF that you can print off to fill out by hand if that is the better option for your personal circumstance. The completed paper FAFSA can be mailed to:

Federal Student Aid Programs, P.O. Box 7654, London KY, 40742-7654.

Potential universities you want to attend are a requirement for the FAFSA because the Department of Education will send your FAFSA information to the universities so that they can begin to approximate your financial aid.

Once done filling out the FAFSA, three to five days after filling out the online form, seven to ten for the paper form, you should receive your Student Aid Report (SAR). This acronym is pretty self-explanatory, it details the amount of aid you will receive from the US department of Education.

This federal aid can come in four different types: loans, grants, scholarships and work-study funds. One unknown thing is that there are two types of loans for college aid: subsidized and unsubsidized. Subsidized loans are where the interest on the loan is paid by the government while you are in college; unsubsidized loans accumulate interest that you have to pay, whether enrolled in college or not. Grants and scholarships are both forms of money that you do not have to repay, the only difference is that grants are offered by institutions or governments while scholarships are offered by individuals or companies. Work-study allows you to earn money to pay for your schooling by doing federally funded jobs on campus.

The Department of Education recommends that all students apply before the opening date and be ready to submit your FAFSA on October 1, 2017, however the FAFSA does remain open until June 30, 2018.