Summary of Changes 2008-2009 FAFSA

Summary of Changes

2008-2009 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Colors - The 2008-2009 FAFSA colors are orange for student information and purple for parent information.

Year References - All year references are to be incremented by one year.

Design – The design and layout of the FAFSA is essentially unchanged from the previous year.

Data Elements – The wording of two questions have been revised, however the question numbers remain the same as in 2007-2008.

School/College References – Where applicable and if reference is beyond high school, replace the word school with the word college.

Application Pages

Page 7

Question 21 - We revised question 21 asking are you male by adding are you female. This is a more direct question to determine if a student is required to register with the Selective Service.

Question: Are you male or female? (Most male students must register with Selective Service to get federal aid.) Male _____ Female ____

Question 27 - We revised question 27 asking whether a student will have a high school diploma or GED before the 2008-2009 school year to include two additional options (home schooled or other). The Notes on page 2 refers students to new instructions for reporting an option.

Question: If you will complete high school or its equivalent before you begin the 2008-2009 school year, enter the correct number in the box. See Notes page 2

Page 10

Step Six - We revised the text in Step Six to refer to “colleges” instead of schools. This is more consistent with education beyond high school.

Step Six: Indicate which colleges you want to receive your FAFSA information.

Notes Pages

Page 2

Notes for question 16 (page 7) - We added instructions specifically for question 16 regarding marital status to clarify changing this information after signing the FAFSA.

Report your marital status as of the date you sign your FAFSA. If your marital status changes after you sign your FAFSA, you must not change this information.

Notes for question 27 (page 7) – Enter the correct number in the box in question 27.

Enter 1 for High School Diploma

Enter 2 for General Educational Development (GED) certificate

Enter 3 for Home Schooled

Enter 4 for Other

Notes for questions 34 (page 8) and 78 (page 9) - We added a sentence at the end of these instructions to emphasize another condition for answering “Yes” to this question.

“If you filed a 1040 and were not required to file a tax return, you should answer “Yes” to this question.”

Page 4

Notes for questions 71-75 – We added text to the instructions for dependent students and their parents explaining that answering these questions will not reduce their benefits from the five federal means-tested benefit programs.

“Mark an oval … 2006. Use … household.” “Answering these questions will not reduce your eligibility for student aid or these other federal benefits.”

Notes for questions 92-96 - We added text to the instructions for independent students and spouse explaining that answering these questions will not reduce their benefits from the five federal means-tested benefit programs.

“Mark an oval … 2006. Use … household.” “Answering these questions will not reduce your eligibility for student aid or these other federal benefits.”

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Summary of Changes 2

2008-2009 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)