After you complete a Free Application for Federal Student Assistance (FAFSA), you may wonder how the college you will be attending will use the information to calculate the financial assistance you receive. Although the exact process may vary a bit from school to school, the basic method used for calculating your financial aid is pretty much the same from one school to the next. Therefore, the more you understand about the process, the more comfortable you will feel with the timeline.

Receiving Your Information

In general, it will take about one to three weeks for the college to receive the information from the FAFSA you have submitted. After receiving your application, the college may actually contact you and ask you to provide additional documents or information that may not have been included with the FAFSA application. In order to make certain the process goes as smoothly and as quickly as possible, it is important for you to respond to these requests right away. Once the college receives all of the necessary information, it will review the information in order to determine the type of financial aid you can receive from the college.

Determining Your Need

If you are a student who is still living with your parents, your financial aid will be determined based upon how much your parents should be reasonably expected to contribute as well as how much you would be expected to contribute toward your college expenses. After subtracting this amount from the amount of the tuition and fees, the college can then determine the maximum amount of financial aid you can receive. This is not the amount of the financial aid package you will receive, however, as the outside aid you receive such as assistance from the Federal Pell Grant, scholarships and other grants will be deducted before the school determines the amount of financial aid it is willing to provide.

Helping with Expenses

The college you are interested in attending may provide you with a variety of different ways to help you pay for your college expenses. For example, you may qualify for a scholarship or a grant from the college. Or, you may be able to participate in a work-study program that will help you with off-setting the cost of attending the college. As such, the financial aid package you receive may actually be a combination of loans, grants, fellowships, work-study and scholarships that, when used together, will help you pay your college expenses and finally earn the degree you have been dreaming of getting.