It’s here: the Department of Education has published its Student Aid Index and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide for the 2025-26 school year. This is the FAFSA formula, aka how the sausage gets made. The Guide is available for download below, but first a little context and explanation. About a week ago the Department of Education announced that this year’s FAFSA…
The FAFSA is still a few months away, so now is a good time to familiarize yourself with it. I’ll go into more details on each element in the coming weeks; for now let’s get started with the big picture of how the FAFSA calculates your Student Aid Index. First and foremost, the FAFSA is not the tooth fairy. The…
The FAFSA now uses income from your tax return only. But “income” isn’t just your wages or your Adjusted Gross Income. It’s all the income on your tax return, whether you pay taxes on it or not. Good news: starting with the 2024-25 school year, the FAFSA no longer considers income that isn’t on your tax return, such as payroll…
Let’s assume that this year’s FAFSA is going to come out on Oct. 1 as scheduled. If you’re filing it this year, now is a great time to get a handle on it. I’ll provide additional details on more complicated assets in subsequent posts. What is and isn’t an asset on the FAFSA? Here’s a quick “is it or isn’t…
Let’s assume that this year’s FAFSA is going to come out on Oct. 1 as scheduled. If you’re filing it this year, now is a great time to get a handle on it. I’ll provide additional details on more complicated assets in subsequent posts. What is and isn’t an asset on the FAFSA? Here’s a quick “is it or isn’t…
