Student FAFSA Guide

Formerly known as the FAFSA4caster, the Federal Student Aid Estimator is a free tool powered by the Office of Federal Student Aid that allows you to see how much aid you may receive. To use this tool, you’ll need to provide:

• Basic personal information
• Information about the number of people in your household
• Total household income and value of assets from the previous tax year
   

This form usually takes between five and 10 minutes. After you've submitted your answers, the tool will give you an estimate of what your aid would be. Keep in mind, this is simply an estimate.

The FAFSA Submission Summary is a form that provides a summary of all the information you reported on the FAFSA. It will also provide your estimated amount of aid and your SAI.

The FAFSA will not sign you up for the draft. While registering with the selective service was once a FAFSA requirement for males to receive federal aid, the FAFSA Simplification Act eliminated this requirement. The question on the FAFSA regarding selective service registration was removed from the 2023-24 application, and won’t appear in future applications.

Provide information for the parent who financially supported you the most in the past 12 months. If support was exactly equal or your parents do not financially support you, use the parent with the higher amount of income and assets.

Include information for both parents.

If you live with a foster parent or a legal guardian, you’re automatically considered an independent on the FAFSA, which means you’ll be eligible for additional aid. According to StudentAid.gov, for the question asking if you were in foster care at any time since you turned 13, you will answer “yes” if:

• You had no living parent, even if you’ve since been adopted;
• You were in foster care, even if you’re not in it now; or
• You were a dependent or ward of the court, even if you aren’t now.

The FAFSA form does not currently ask about a parent's citizenship status, and they will not need to provide a social security number (SSN) on the form. To complete their section of the FAFSA form, they only need to create a StudentAid.gov account.

You won’t qualify for federal aid as a DACA student, but you should still fill out the FAFSA, as this will determine your eligibility for state and institutional aid, but you need an SSN to fill out the FAFSA. If you're eligible, you can learn more about obtaining an SSN as a DACA applicant.

For the citizenship status question, you'll answer “Neither U.S. citizen nor eligible noncitizen.” For the state of legal residence question, you'll choose the state where your permanent address is located.

If your parents are not supporting you financially, but you are not an emancipated minor, provide information about the parent with the higher income and assets. 

If you're an emancipated minor, you are considered an independent student and do not need to provide your parents' information.

If your surviving parent has not remarried, you should just include their information. If they have remarried, you should also include the information of their new spouse, your stepparent.

If your parents live together, whether married or not, you'll report information for both parents.

If one of the following circumstances prevents you from contacting your parents, you can indicate this on the form and skip questions regarding parents and submit the form without their signature.

• Your parents are incarcerated.
• You have left home due to an abusive family environment.
• You are a victim of human trafficking.
• You have been granted refugee or asylee status.
• You were abandoned by or estranged from your parents and have not been adopted.