Parents and Students: How to Prepare for a FAFSA Completion Workshop

Gather the Documents Needed to Apply

The FAFSA asks for information about you (your name, date of birth, address, etc.) and your financial situation. Depending on your circumstances (for instance, when you filed taxes or what tax form you used), you might need the following information or documents as you fill out the FAFSA:

  • Your Social Security number (it’s important that you enter it correctly on the FAFSA!)
  • Your parents’ Social Security numbers if you are adependent student
  • Your driver’s license number if you have one
  • Your Alien Registration Number if you are not a U.S. citizen
  • 2015 Federal tax information or tax returns including IRS W-2 information, for you (and your spouse, if you are married), and for your parents if you are a dependent student:
  • IRS 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ
  • Foreign tax return and/or
  • Tax return for Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Federal States of Micronesia or Palau
  • Records of your untaxed income (such as child support received, interest income, and veterans non-education benefits) for you and for your parents if you are a dependent student
  • Information on cash, savings and checking account balances, investments (including stocks and bonds and real estate but not including the home in which you live), and business/farm assets for you and for your parents if you are a dependent student.

The FAFSA asks for financial information, including balances of savings and checking accounts and information from tax forms.

  • Use income records for 2015. Those are the taxes you filed this past April (2016). 2015 taxes are theonly tax records that will be used.
  • If you filed 2015taxes, consider the option to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (IRS DRT). This will automatically populate the application with your tax information.
  • If your financial situation has dramatically changed since last year (new job, loss of job, death in the family, etc.), you should provide the 2015 information and then call the school’s Financial Aid Office to explain any changes.

Completion of the FAFSA requires both student and one parent to create an FSA ID.

  • You may want to do this prior to the FAFSA Workshop.
  • Go to to do this.
  • You will need your SS# and email.
  • Student and parent must have SEPARATE FSA ID’s and DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESSES.
  • Keep a WRITTEN RECORD of the information used to create your FSA ID. You will use this same ID every year in which you file the FAFSA.