One of the most complicated parts of the college application process is the financial aid form. With Buffalo's Say Yes to Education push, the University at Buffalo is helping with the application process with its FAFSA Completion Project.
Most Buffalo public school graduates looking to college need financial aid and must wade through a process of more than 100 questions about a family financial picture. But for Buffalo Public School students, a high percentage of the district's students and parents don't speak much English. It's also a school district where some students are homeless and still trying to get into college.
“The FAFSA, like the college application, can be pretty overwhelming,” noted Nathan Daun-Barnet, assistant professor in the university's Graduate School of Education.
UB's Assistant Education Professor Nathan Daun-Barnett said many students are eligible for aid but are tangled in a system built around the income tax.
"We can't really give them good estimates because in a lot of cases these kids who are eligible their families aren't filing taxes. That's what we really found with the FAFSA Project. We had to spend a lot of time helping families who legitimately don't. There were lots of families on Social Security or disability benefits. They weren't filing taxes because they didn't have any taxable income and we had to help them through that process," said Daun-Barnett.
Daun-Barnett said a recent study indicates the best way to fill-out the FAFSA form is to have your income tax preparer do it while doing your taxes. With UB students helping in city schools and in the first of the College Success Centers, student FAFSA applications were up 61 percent last year.
