College & Career Training in Alaska

Happy Halloween! Have you filed your FAFSA yet? Not to scare you, but most forms of financial aid are based on a first filed, first served system – so, the earlier you file the FAFSA the better your chances are of receiving the aid that you qualify for. If you haven’t filed yet and are planning on attending college or career training next year, you will want to head to fafsa.gov and file – and remember, you need to file for every year that you will attend school.

The 2019–20 FAFSA form, which became available Oct. 1, 2018, will ask for 2017 tax information. That’s what “Prior Prior Year” means. You file in October with the tax information you (most likely) submitted in this spring. You can use the data retrieval tool to try and automate the entry of your tax information into the FAFSA system. This retrieval tool only works if the address you entered exactly matches the address listed on your taxes.  

Independent students are not required to provide parent information on the FAFSA. Visit the following link for further information about FAFSA dependency status:  studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/dependency

This handy question chart can help you determine if you are an independent student:

If you have already filed your FAFSA – good for you! Whoohooo!

If you have not filed your FAFSA, don’t wait! Go now and fill it out fafsa.gov. If you have questions or would like to sit down with an expert contact the ACPE Success Center, ACPESuccessCenter@alaska.gov, 800-441-2962 option #4

A handy dandy Alaska FAFSA guide can be downloaded here.

Or pick up a FAFSA Folder with the same information at the Success Center in the Dimond and University malls.