When it comes to college, many students stress over the money required to obtain an education.
On Thursday, Jan. 25, the College and Career Center offered a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application workshop for seniors and their families from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. This workshop aided students in filling out their FAFSA applications.
The FAFSA is designed to help students to apply for scholarships, grants, Cal Grants, institutional aid, loans, and work-study funds to help with the cost of college, especially since it is a source of stress for many families, who have to pay for tuition along with their textbooks, units, and other costs.
At the FAFSA workshop on Thursday night, many students attended along with their parents. The workshop was intended to help out with any issues through the application process and guide families.
When filling out the FAFSA, families can get confused easily. Providing a place where students and parents can have their questions answered makes the process a lot faster and more beneficial.
“A lot of students are unfamiliar with taxes and money in general, so the workshops that we hold here are meant to walk parents and students through the process step by step so that they don’t make any mistakes on their applications,” said Kristi Longoria, an adult who helped at the workshop.
Mistakes on the application can cause many different problems, one being that the family may not get the amount of financial aid that they are eligible to receive. The ultimate goal of the workshop is to minimize this possibility.
“I went to the FAFSA workshop because I wanted to make sure I did everything correctly before I officially submitted the application. FAFSA is a great opportunity for me because college is very expensive, and I want to get as much financial support as I can to help with the costs,” said Keira Lyman, a senior.
What many students don’t know is that the FAFSA can help almost everyone. The workshop’s main goal was to provide students with answers and hopefully end with them knowing the approximate amount of money that they will be paying for college.
“We’d love for every family to come in, sit down, knock all that application stuff out of the way, hit submit and be done with it,” said Longoria.