Need Financial Aid Program, This is a Guide to the FAFSA Form

The FAFSA financial aid form is probably the single most important financial aid form you will ever complete in your career as a college student or parent of a college student. As such, it's vital to complete it quickly and accurately, to ensure that you get the maximum amount of aid. This tutorial will walk you through the completion of the FAFSA, step by step, giving you hints and tips along the way.

This tutorial will be focusing on the 2007-2008 FAFSA.
Before You Begin

Take a deep breath. Relax. The FAFSA form may be time-consuming, but it's not impossible, and you can do it.

You will need to gather up all your documentation and download a copy of the FAFSA Financial Aid form, as well as the appropriate IRS tax forms, available here.

• The 2007-2008 FAFSA form (PDF, 1024 KB)
• You may also find it helpful to have the IRS 1040 form handy. (PDF, 352 KB)
• Still available: the 2006-2007 FAFSA form (PDF, 648 KB). Do not use if you're filing for the fall semester of 2007!

Hablamos Espanol? Llene su FAFSA en Español (PDF)! Also, some 2006 FAFSA guides were printed incorrectly by the Department of Education, missing the tax line insert. Get a copy of the tax line guide here (PDF)!

We will be using the 2007-2007 FAFSA form as a reference during this tutorial. We recommend printing it out and following along, filling in everything as we go for practice. Disregard the preparation worksheets; we'll be working directly on the FAFSA form itself, which is colored yellow and purple.

If you want the most in-depth understanding of the FAFSA, be sure to read the EFC Computation guide (PDF).

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