All you need to know about Student Aid

3 Types of FAFSA deadlines you should pay attention to

Ah, deadlines. The sworn enemy of students across the nation. When you’re busy with classes, extracurricular activities, and a social life in whatever time you’ve got left, it’s easy to lose track and let due dates start whooshing by. All of a sudden, your U.S. history paper is due at midnight, and you still don’t know Madison from a minuteman. We get it.

Nevertheless, we’re here to point out a few critical deadlines that you really shouldn’t miss: those to do with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®). By submitting your FAFSA late, you might be forfeiting big money that can help you pay for college. Luckily for you, you’ve got just three types of deadlines to stay on top of. Now if only your Founding Father flashcards were that simple.

Here are those three deadlines:

1. The College Deadline

The first type of deadline comes from colleges themselves, and—spoiler alert—it’s typically pretty early. These deadlines vary from school to school, but they usually come well before the academic year starts. If you’re applying to multiple colleges, be sure to look up each school’s FAFSA deadline and apply by the earliest one.

Many of these FAFSA due dates are priority deadlines. This means that you need to get your FAFSA in by that date to be considered for the most money. Many colleges have this date clearly marked on their financial aid pages. If you can’t find it, you can always call your school’s financial aid office.

If you’re worried about gathering information to complete the FAFSA in time to meet this deadline, don’t be. Beginning with the 2017-18 FAFSA, you’ll be able to apply as early as October 1 (instead of January 1 as you may have done in the past). This earlier submission date will give you more time to complete the FAFSA before college deadlines approach, which means more time to compare schools and more certainty. You’ll use earlier (2015) tax information, so there’s no need for estimates and most people will be able to automatically import tax information directly into the FAFSA.

Didn’t think it could get any easier? The earlier launch date coincides with many college application deadlines, so go ahead and apply for schools and for federal aid at the same time. If you haven’t figured out where you’re applying yet, don’t worry! You can still submit the FAFSA now. Just add any school you’re considering, even if you’re not sure whether you’ll apply or be accepted. You can always add or remove schools later.

2. The State Deadline

The second deadline is determined by your home state. Check your state’s deadline here.Some states have suggested deadlines to make sure you get priority consideration for college money, and some just want you to get the FAFSA in as soon as you can. Several states that offer first come, first served financial aid will be changing their deadlines from “as soon as possible after January 1” to “as soon as possible after October 1” to match the application’s earlier launch. If your state’s deadline is “As soon as possible after October 1, 2016,” you should get your FAFSA submitted ASAP. Many of these states award financial aid funds only until they run out, so the sooner you apply, the better your chances.

3. The Federal Deadline

This last deadline comes from us, the Department of Education, aka the FAFSA folks. This one is pretty low-pressure. Our only time constraint is that each year’s FAFSA becomes unavailable on June 30 at the end of the academic year it applies to.

That means that the 2017–18 FAFSA (which launched on Oct. 1, 2016) will disappear from fafsa.gov on June 30, 2018, because that’s the end of the 2017–18 school year. That’s right; you can technically go through your entire year at college before accessing the FAFSA. However, a few federal student aid programs have limited funds, so be sure to apply as soon as you can. Also, as we said, earlier deadlines from states and colleges make waiting a bad idea.

For more details on these deadlines, go here.