By Marlene Seeklander During your senior year, you made a lot of decisions, including finalizing your college choice. This year was filled with submitting admission applications, scholarship essays, financial aid information, and deadlines. Below are the tasks you should complete during the month of July: Congratulations! It’s time to get ready to start your life after […]
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By Marlene Seeklander Financial aid professionals will want to make note of recent updates to the FAFSA Specifications Guides for various award years. The Department of Education recently announced updates to several important volumes of the guides. The following volume has been added to the 2027-28 FAFSA Specifications Guide: In the 2026-27 FAFSA Specifications Guide, updates were
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By Marlene Seeklander Students interested in pursuing a major in video games or computer science-related majors may want to look into some scholarship opportunities for these majors. Scholarships enable students to pay for an education and avoid student loan debt. In addition, scholarships are recognition of a student’s accomplishments – something that can be included on
By Marlene Seeklander Student loan borrowers will see an increase in interest rates starting July 1 for Direct Loans borrowed on or after July 1, 2026. The new interest rates were announced by the Department of Education in a June 4 Electronic Announcement. The interest rate is a fixed rate for the life of the loan. For
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By Marlene Seeklander Students completing the FASA will no longer have to wait to view their FAFSA Submission Summary. In a June 1 Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education announced that they have launched a processing enhancement that allows students to immediately view their FAFSA Submission Summary when signing and submitting an initial application or correction
Real-Time FAFSA results now available Read More »
By Marlene Seeklander Congratulations on your graduation from high school! For most people, it’s one of the big milestones in life. Like most high school graduates, you may be just now catching your breath after all the activity surrounding the end of the senior year. It’s a good time for you to relax and reflect on
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By Marlene Seeklander Anyone interested in the 2027-28 FAFSA can now take a look – or perhaps a second look – at the form. In a May 26 update to an earlier Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education announced that they are seeking feedback on updated draft 2027-28 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form
Updated 2027-28 FAFSA documents now available for comment Read More »
By Catherine Mueller Add some on-the-job experience to your education and you are positioning yourself for a successful career. After all, most employers want to know that you have both classroom education and hands-on experience no matter what career field you’ve chosen – whether it’s a technical or building trade, an art or craftsman skill, or
Key differences between internships, apprenticeships, work-study and part-time jobs Read More »
By Catherine Mueller Financial aid professionals will be busy checking student identity after a few hundred thousand FAFSAs were selected for additional verification. The selection of the FAFSAs for additional identity verification follows the implementation of a new fraud detection system. On May 14, the Department added information to a April 15 announcement about the fraud
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By Marlene Seeklander While FAFSA Simplification may have been a challenge for many schools, a recent GAO study confirms what many in the industry thought – that student eligibility increased for Pell Grants after changes were made to the FAFSA. A recent study published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that student eligibility for Pell Grants,
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