Student Aid Report: Read it and Weep - How Will I Pay for College ...

How quickly you receive the SAR depends on how you filed your FAFSA. If you file a paper FAFSA, it may take 2-3 weeks, or more. If you file electronically through the Department of Education website, your SAR can be available in 3 to 10 days. However, if you do not receive your SAR within 4 weeks, ?you should call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FED-AID or 1-319-337-5665. ?They will ask for some identification information (Social Security number, date of birth, etc), and then they will let you know if your FAFSA has been processed. You can also write to the?Federal Student Aid Information Center?for the status of your FAFSA at:

Federal Student Aid Programs

Washington, DC 52243-4038

The SAR will summarize the information on the FAFSA, and tell ?you how much Pell Grant money you qualify for, your calculated Expected Family Contribution (EFC), as well as a summary of any outstanding loans. Note also that the SAR will contain a Data Release Number (DRN), a four-digit reference number that you will need if you want to send the SAR to additional schools that you did not include when you filed your FAFSA. Students should keep a copy of their SAR in their college folder (you did start a folder, didn't you?).

If you review your SAR and find a mistake, you will need to correct or update your FAFSA. ?You can ?make changes to the FAFSA in one of three different ways:

• Online FAFSA Corrections?You can go to the FAFSA website and make online corrections by selecting "Make FAFSA Corrections" after logging in. This is the fastest way to update your application, and highly recommended. You will need the student PIN you received when initially registering at the FAFSA website.?If the student is a dependent, a parent PIN is required as well.?You can correct anything on the application except for the student's Social Security Number (SSN). If you made a mistake in reporting your SSN, ask the financial aid office at the school you plan to attend whether you should start over again and submit a new FAFSA.?The financial aid office might be able to make other changes for you electronically, as well.?
• Paper FAFSA Corrections?Write the corrections or changes directly on your paper SAR, sign it, and mail it to the address provided on the SAR (keep a copy in your folder, remember?)
• Phone FAFSA Corrections You can add a school to your FAFSA by calling the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243. You will need to provide your DRN, which is found both on your SAR and online on the FAFSA website.

After your target schools receive your SAR and prepare your financial aid package, they will send an award letter to you (which you will keep in your folder). This Financial Aid Award Notice can be confusing (perhaps even misleading), though the Department of Education is attempting to clarify and standardize this (see the second paragraph of this post).?

After you receive all of your financial aid notices, you can follow these steps to figure out your ?net cost for each school on a comparable basis, to see which school is most affordable for you.

• First, find the total cost of attendance for your program on the aid letter (you may need to?ask the financial aid office of that school if it is not clearly listed in the letter). Be ?sure it includes what you pay directly to the school (tuition, room & board, and fees) as well as other costs (living expenses, books & supplies, and transportation).
• Next, subtract the grant and scholarship amounts (Pell Grants, FSEOG, school grants/scholarships, etc) on your aid offer from the cost of attendance. This is free money that does not have to be repaid, and reduces your tuition directly. Also subtract any savings you have available to put toward your school costs for the upcoming school year (either a 529 plan or other savings). The remaining amount is your net out-of-pocket cost.
• Finally, compare the net costs for all of the schools you are considering. The net cost is the amount you will have to pay out of your pocket, using earnings from work or from student loans that you will need to apply for (or perhaps from your crowdfunding efforts!)

While all of this government paperwork might remind of filing your income taxes, I highly recommend that you do not hire one of the organizations that offer to fill out your FAFSA (or help you to fill it out). The questions are really quite simple (though some terms and acronyms can slow you down), and many won't apply to you. Just take your time, get educated, and read the paperwork carefully, and you can get through this in no time.

Source: http://www.howwillipayforcollege.com/2012/12/student-aid-report-read-it-and-weep.html

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