President Barack Obama has announced changes to FAFSA, the Free Application For Federal Student Aid. Many Americans complete the FAFSA each year to be eligible for federal, state or college based aid.
"Today, we're lending a hand to millions of high school students who want to go to college and who've worked hard. We're announcing an easier, earlier FAFSA," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in Iowa, during the President's annual Back to School Bus Tour reports NPR.
According to the changed FAFSA, students who will become high school seniors in October 2016 will be able to submit the FAFSA in October 2016 using income tax information from their parents' 2015 tax returns and apply for financial aid for their freshman (academic) year of college in 2017-2018, according to Forbes.
As college financial aid eligibility of students will now be based on income from two years prior to when a student enrolls in college, not one year prior as the rule has been until now, the new FAFSA is being called the "prior, prior."
"Learning about aid eligibility options much earlier in the college application and decision process will allow students and families to determine the true cost of attending college - taking available financial aid into account - and make more informed decisions. Over the next several years, the simpler FAFSA filing process could encourage hundreds of thousands of additional students to apply for and claim the aid they are eligible for - and enroll in college," the White House said in a statement, according to the Huffington Post.
The FAFSA changes follow the recently announced 'College Scorecard' by the White House. The scorecard is a data base that allows students and parents to judge more than 7,000 colleges across 1,700 variables.
