What documents to gather now for FAFSA 2025-2026 for high school junior?

You're smart to start preparing early! For 2025-2026 FAFSA, you'll need: - 2023 tax returns (both yours and your spouse's if married filing separately) - 2023 W-2 forms and other income records - Current bank statements and investment records - Social Security numbers for you and your student - Your student's driver's license if they have one - List of colleges your daughter is considering (up to 20 can be added) Regarding the 529 plan, your sister is wrong. Parent-owned 529 plans are reported as parent assets which only affect your SAI calculation by a maximum of 5.64% of their value above the asset protection allowance. So a $10,000 529 would only increase your SAI by about $564 at most. It's actually one of the more favorable ways to save for college from a financial aid perspective.

One thing the previous poster didn't mention is that the financial aid process is COMPLETELY BROKEN now with the new FAFSA. We applied in January for my son who's a freshman this year and it was a DISASTER!!! The website kept crashing, none of our information transferred correctly from the IRS, and we had to submit correction after correction. Then they kept sending verification requests for documents we'd already uploaded THREE TIMES!!! Start collecting everything now because you'll need backup copies when they inevitably lose your information. And good luck actually reaching anyone on the phone - I spent 17+ hours on hold over 2 weeks trying to talk to someone about our application errors.

quick tip - make sure you have separate FSA IDs for both u and ur daughter. like they need to have diff emails and everything. my kid used my email for his and it caused a HUGE mess. also theyll need their SS card handy when creating the FSA ID

Seeing some misinformation here so I want to clarify a few things (I work in college financial aid): 1. For 2025-2026 FAFSA, you'll use 2023 tax information. This is the "prior-prior year" approach. 2. The new FAFSA calculates a Student Aid Index (SAI) instead of the old EFC. The asset protection allowance has been dramatically reduced in recent years, so more of your assets may count. 3. You should understand contributor relationships: if married, both parents' information is required. If divorced/separated, it's the parent the student lived with most + any stepparent. FAFSA no longer asks about non-custodial parents. 4. The new FAFSA eliminated the sibling discount, but having multiple children in college can still help with institutional aid at many colleges. 5. Start by creating FSA IDs for both you and your student at studentaid.gov NOW - don't wait until application time. These can take time to verify.

Something no one mentioned yet - make sure you understand which parent(s) need to provide information if you're divorced/separated. My ex and I got totally confused about this and filled it out wrong TWICE. For FAFSA it's the parent the student lived with more during the last 12 months (plus any step-parent), but for CSS Profile (which many private colleges require), they want BOTH biological parents' info regardless of who claims the student on taxes. We messed this up and my daughter almost lost her financial aid package because of it.

my cousins kid didnt get ANY aid bcuz they forgot to submit fafsa by priority deadline!! each school has diff deadlines so check all of them!!!!! some r as early as december for the next fall!!! make a calendar with all the dates!!!

Another tip I want to add: the 2025-2026 FAFSA should open October 1, 2024. File as close to the opening date as possible, as some aid is first-come, first-served. Also, since your student will be starting college in Fall 2025, you should be looking at merit scholarships now. Many schools have separate applications for merit aid with deadlines in December-January of senior year. These are not part of FAFSA but can significantly reduce costs. Finally, I recommend running some preliminary net price calculators on college websites now to get a rough estimate of your expected contribution. The new FAFSA formula has changed significantly, so estimates from friends with students currently in college may not be accurate for your situation.

Has anyone mentioned that they now want MUCH more investment information???? Like literally every single account. We had to report my husband's small employee stock purchase plan that we'd completely forgotten about and it delayed our whole application by THREE WEEKS because we had to get special valuation statements. They even wanted information about a tiny inheritance my husband received that was only $5,400! Ridiculous how they penalize families who save responsibly while giving massive aid to families who never bothered to save a cent for college.

Just went through this with my kid who's a freshman now. I recommend taking screenshots of EVERYTHING during the FAFSA submission process. Our confirmation page never arrived by email even though the system said it sent it. Also, make sure your daughter lists all potential schools on the FAFSA when she first submits it - adding schools later triggers additional verification steps sometimes. And weirdest thing - after submitting, login to the studentaid.gov account every few days to check status. They don't always send notifications when there are problems or if they need more info. We almost missed a verification request because the email went to spam.