February is FAFSA month and we’ve got some inside tips from a recent FAFSA event you must check out before filing your application. We are also including information on SLN’s 10-Year $10K Anniversary Scholarship – a $10,000 scholarship you won’t want to miss.

Please give us a call toll-free at (877) 328-1565 if you have comments or questions. If you know someone who should be getting this newsletter but is not, please tell them about it!

Christopher Penn, Editor

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10-Year $10K Anniversary Scholarship

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SLN is celebrating its 10th anniversary by sponsoring a $10,000 scholarship. The 10-Year $10K Scholarship is open to any college or graduate student who will be enrolled full-time in 2008 – so any high school senior, college undergrad, or graduate student is welcome to enter this drawing. The best part is… there is no essay writing, GPA minimum, or anything that other scholarships typically require. Registration only takes half a minute to complete.

Enter the 10-Year $10K Scholarship drawing now:

http://www.studentloannetwork.com/10K

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Featured Editorial: FAFSA Filing Tips from College Goal Sunday

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I had the opportunity this year to again volunteer at Massachusetts College Goal Sunday, a day when students, parents, and families gather to receive help completing the FAFSA. Along the way, I had the opportunity to answer lots of questions from attendees about the FAFSA as well as the greater financial aid picture. Here are several tips from the event that may help you when it comes time to file your FAFSA.

One of the main issues with the Web FAFSA application is inconsistency in its user interface. There are buttons underneath many tables as you go through the FAFSA from. Such button (centered and directly below a table) typically fulfills the role of submit elsewhere on the Web. Not the case here - it usually does something else. The previous and next buttons are also not big, huge, or easily noticed; but they are important. Be on the lookout for them.

The Save button appears intermittently throughout the application. When it’s available, however, make use of it as it will preserve your data in case something goes wrong. Just going to the next page in the Web FAFSA application does not save your FAFSA information.

You should not use the Back button at any point or your FAFSA application will blow up and start spitting out errors.

At the end of the process, all available actions are crammed into one small toolbar in the middle of the screen. When you’re ready to file, simply click on the Submit Your FAFSA for Processing button - it’s lumped in the middle of the toolbar.

If you are a current student looking for the 2008-2009 renewal FAFSA, be warned: there is no link or button which would direct you to such section on the FAFSA site or in the initial application. Thankfully, Carla Berg of Bentley College pointed out that the FAFSA renewal option is now gone. When you go to file a FAFSA as a returning student, the application apparently pre-populates with last year’s data, but that’s not obvious anywhere on the site.

I also met a gentleman who was stopping by to get a second opinion about his child’s FAFSA before paying $100. I asked him what he was talking about when he said this - he’d been on a paid FAFSA filing service that was charging him $100 to file his FAFSA. When we sat down and went over his application, there was absolutely nothing in his finances that warranted any kind of fee. Beware - except for a rare few individuals who have extremely complicated finances, there is no reason to pay to have your FAFSA filed; those few individuals are likely already have a CPA and CFA on retainer. If you’re on a website asking you to pay to file your FAFSA, odds are you don’t need to pay - make sure you’re on the official government web site, FAFSA.ed.gov. You can get there easily from the also-free FAFSAonline.com.

Finally, the school code finder in the FAFSA website is still less than ideal, especially if a school is generally known as one thing but the Department of Education has a different canonical name. For example, three students said they couldn’t find their school, Mass Bay Community College, in the school code finder. When I pulled up the list from FAFSAonline.com, we were able to find it easily. The FAFSA application didn’t understand that the canonical name, Massachusetts Bay Community College, is not how the school is generally known, even by the school itself (their website is MassBay.edu). When you go to file your FAFSA online, keep FAFSAonline.com open in another window so you have easy access to our browse-able school list.

We hope these inside tips from Massachusetts College Goal Sunday are helpful as you go to file your FAFSA. Visit FAFSAonline.com for more FAFSA filing tips and tricks.

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Blog Highlights from SLN Experts

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• Our College Search Advisor shows you how to compare your financial aid offers.
• Lee Anne Hannula explains a school’s role in the Stafford Loan.
• Jon Rudy shares the Personal Finance First-Aid Kit to help you build a budget.
• Can Congress shame colleges into decreasing tuition?
• Russ Ain shares some great credit card options for recent graduates.

Please take a moment to rate these blog posts and many more at Financial Aid News Stories (FANS)!

http://www.FinancialAidNews.com/fans/

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Scholarships

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Have you registered for Scholarship Points, our free college scholarship awards site? Scholarship Points gives away monthly ($250) and quarterly ($1,000) scholarships. Each point you earn gets you an additional entry into the drawing for the current month and quarter. It’s quite simple - the more points you earn, the better your chances of winning. Visit: http://www.ScholarshipPoints.com

Here’s highlights of awards from StudentScholarshipSearch.com - visit the site to see all the new awards posted recently:

• David W. Miller Award for Student Journalists
• American Standard Scholarship
• ChooseNursing.com Scholarship Program
• MLA Scholarship for Minority Students
• Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Scholarships
• Lycoming College Academic Scholarships

Keep in mind that you can get daily scholarship updates by listening to the Financial Aid Podcast (http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com) and visiting the Student Scholarship Search website (http://www.StudentScholarshipSearch.com).

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A Word from our Partners

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We look forward to helping you reach your education goals in 2008. Visit our Resource Center for useful tools to help jump start your new year with more money to pay for college. Visit: http://www.studentloannetwork.com/resources/

and download our 2008-2009 FAFSA Help Guide and the 4^th edition Scholarship Search Secrets.

Ever take out jackets from last year and find money in the pockets? Is that always a pleasant surprise? You’ll feel the same way after you combine your federal or private student loans. Cut your monthly payment by nearly half, simplify your budgeting, and start finding money in your pocket every month. Visit: http://www.StudentLoanConsolidator.com

Get daily free financial aid information on your iPod or computer! Tune into the Financial Aid Podcast every weekday for news, scholarships, and great music. Money talks. Are you listening? Visit: http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com

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The Very Last Word

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Financial Aid News is a publication of the Student Loan Network.

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© 2008 Edvisors. All rights reserved.

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Missed an issue? Are you looking for a scholarship but cannot find the back issue? Want to tell a friend about the newsletter? You can always find back issues of the Financial Aid Newsletter at: http://www.FinancialAidNews.com