hey everyone Tina here the FAFSA guru and today I want to share with you three FAFSA mistakes that
can cost you a whole lot of money it's August kids are getting ready to go back to school and
before we know it FAFSA season is going to be here October 1st of the earliest that you can fill out
your FAFSA for the 2020 2021 school year I work with a lot of families and helping them complete
the FAFSA and some of the more common mistakes I see I'm going to go over with you today because
it can really cost you a lot when it comes to financial aid so the first is not filling it out
there is a lot of research out there showing that forty to fifty percent of families are not filling
out a FAFSA because they don't think they're going to qualify for any money I encourage everyone to
fill one out always you know not all financial aid is based on just need and there are some colleges
that award some institutional scholarship money and they use the FAFSA information to do that
federal student loans are a big part of financial aid they're low-interest loans that are not based
on credit that students can get in their own name which can really help with financial aid
but if you don't fill out the FAFSA they can't even get awarded those so that's mistake number
one getting the FAFSA completed is crucial it's free and everybody should fill one out
the second mistake that I see often is people filling out the asset information incorrectly
this is big because the government takes into consideration your income along with the amount
of assets you have when determining what they call your expected Family Contribution which is
what the financial aid offices use the financial aid office uses to determine how much money to
award you so filling this out incorrectly can cost you a lot of money some of the biggest mistakes I
see are people reporting their home value as an asset the value of the home you live in is one
asset that is protected on the FAFSA you do not have to report so don't report that another asset
that you do not have to report is retirement so a lot of people accidentally put in their retirement
and you know middle-aged parents could have a significant amount of money put aside in that and
if they list that as an asset it's going to really count against you know their kiddo in terms of
financial aid so do not count the home you live in do not count retirement and then one of the other
big asset mistakes I see is people reporting their business value so if you're self-employed and own
a business you file taxes when it comes to the income section you have to report your business
income or loss but in the asset section it asks about the value of your business and you only
have to report the value if you have a hundred or more employees very very important a lot of
people think because they own a business they're self-employed and they reported their income that
they have to report the value of their business also no that's not the case and then lastly one
of the other common mistakes I see is parents who are divorced or separated filling out the
FAFSA incorrectly if you're divorced or you're separated and it does not have to be a legal
separation you're just you know you just recently separated and you're not living together only one
parent needs to provide their information on the FAFSA and that would be the parent with whom the
child resided with most in the last year so the custodial parent is the one who should be filling
out the FAFSA on behalf of the child a lot of parents who are recently separated when they're
filling out the FAFSA using like prior year tax information they think because they filed a joint
tax return they have to use both of the incomes on the return which is not accurate there's a
question that asks on the FAFSA as of today are you divorced or separated if that applies to you
you would say yes and then you would list the date of the divorce or separation and again you
do not have to be officially or legally separated in order to report that if you're no longer living
together then that applies so those are three big mistakes I see happen all the time filling
the FAFSA out incorrectly can cost you a lot of money so just be careful when you're doing
that and for more information about the services I provide feel free to check out my website I have a
great new coaching program coming up this year for high school seniors and their parents to help them
navigate the college planning and financial aid process step-by-step it's a monthly membership fee
and it's going to be a lot of great information I have two options for families one that's $49 a
month one that's ninety-nine dollars a month just to give families a couple of different options but
check it out so on my website wwf/e saguru calm and thanks so much for listening today take care