A student can opt out of the financial aid application requirement by submitting a signed form authorized by the student (18+), parent/guardian, or both to Mrs. Weikert. 

Forms can be found in Mrs. Weikert's office or at the link below.

Financial Aid Application Opt-Out Form

Gathering Needed Documents

You might need the following information or documents as you fill out the FAFSA form:

• Tax returns

• Records of child support received

• Current balances of cash, savings, and checking accounts

• Net worth of investments, businesses, and farms

• Your parent’s SSN if they have an SSN and you’re a dependent student (for the 2025–26 FAFSA form only)

Keep these records! You may need them again. Do not mail these supporting records to us unless otherwise instructed to do so.

Getting Help

If you need help filling out the FAFSA form, use these free tools:

• In the online FAFSA form, select the question mark icon next to a FAFSA question to view a “tool tip” that provides information about how to answer that question.

• Visit “FAFSA® Help” to find answers to common questions.

• Chat with Aidan®, our virtual assistant, in the online form.

• Contact the financial aid office at the college or career/trade school you plan to attend.

• Make an appointment or email Mrs. Weikert - cweikert@franklinisd.net

Starting Your FAFSA® Form

The 2026–27 FAFSA form is available for the award year that runs from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. The 2025–26 FAFSA form is available now for the award year that runs from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. We encourage you to fill out the form as soon as possible to meet federal, state, and school deadlines.

If you are starting the FAFSA form for the first time on fafsa.gov, select “Start New Form” and enter your account username and password to access the FAFSA form.

If you are applying for a summer session, contact the financial aid office at your college or career/trade school to find out which school year you should select when you complete your FAFSA form.

Reporting Parents’ Information

If you’re a dependent student, you’ll need to report parent information on your FAFSA form. Visit our page on reporting parent information to find out who counts as your parent, what to do if you don’t live with your parents, and what to do if you don’t have access to your parents’ financial information.

Providing Financial Information

The FAFSA form asks for financial information, including information from tax forms.

• The 2026–27 FAFSA form asks for 2024 tax information.

• The 2025–26 FAFSA form asks for 2023 tax information.

Note: If your or your family’s financial situation has changed significantly from what is reflected on your federal income tax return (for example, if you’ve lost a job or otherwise experienced a drop in income), you may be eligible to have your financial aid adjusted. Complete the FAFSA questions as instructed on the application, submit your FAFSA form, then contact the college or career/trade school you plan to attend to discuss how your current financial situation has changed. Note that the school's decision is final and cannot be appealed to the U.S. Department of Education.

The FAFSA form also asks for asset information, such as current balances of checking and savings accounts.

What To Do If Your Parents’ (or Your) Marital Status Has Changed Since Taxes Were Filed

The 2026–27 FAFSA form asks for your or your parent’s marital status as of the day you fill it out, but then requires you or your parent to add income and tax return information from 2024. If your or your parent’s marital status has changed since filing the 2024 tax return, find details on how to report financial information on the FAFSA form.

Automatically Transferring Your Tax Information

Your and your contributor’s federal tax information will be transferred from the IRS into your FAFSA form.

All contributors must provide consent and approval for the U.S. Department of Education to 

• disclose their personally identifiable information provided on the FAFSA form to the IRS to match their information with their tax information; 

• obtain their federal tax information from the IRS and include it with the FAFSA form; 

• use their federal tax information to determine your Student Aid Index and Federal Pell Grant eligibility;

• share their federal tax information with colleges, career/trade schools, and state higher education agencies for use in awarding and administering financial aid; and

• reuse their federal tax information on another FAFSA applicant's form (e.g., if a parent has multiple dependent students or for a parent's own FAFSA form as an aid applicant).

NOTE: Even if contributors don't have an SSN, didn't file taxes, or filed taxes outside the U.S., they will still need to provide consent and approval.

IMPORTANT: If a required contributor doesn't provide consent and approval to have their federal tax information transferred into the FAFSA form, you (the student) will not be eligible for federal student aid—even if the contributor manually enters tax information into the FAFSA form.

To ensure the information is secure, the federal tax information won't display on the FAFSA site or the FAFSA Submission Summary.

Listing Colleges and/or Career Schools

While completing the FAFSA form, you must list at least one school to receive your information. The schools you list will use your FAFSA information to determine the types and amounts of student aid you may receive. Use the School Search to find the colleges or career/trade schools you’re interested in including on your FAFSA form. 

For federal student aid purposes, the order of schools for your college list doesn’t matter. However, to be considered for state aid, some states require you to list schools in a particular order (for instance, you might need to list a state school first). Find out whether your state has a requirement for the order in which you list schools on your FAFSA form.

You can list up to 20 schools online or up to 10 schools on a FAFSA PDF. (You can add or delete schools on your FAFSA form later.) Schools you list on the application will automatically receive your FAFSA results electronically.

Note: Schools will not be able to see which other schools you listed on your FAFSA form. 

You should add any school that you plan on applying to, or that you have applied to, even if you haven’t been accepted yet. In most cases, once a school accepts you, they will then work on developing your aid offer.

Signing and Submitting the FAFSA® Form

After you complete your required section of the FAFSA form online, you’ll acknowledge the terms and conditions of the form and electronically sign your section. You can then submit your section of the FAFSA form. However, your FAFSA form won’t be considered complete until all required contributors provide their information on the FAFSA form, give their consent and approval to transfer federal tax information into the form, and provide their signatures.

After you and your parent (and/or any other required contributor) sign and submit the FAFSA form, the form will be considered complete and will be submitted for processing.

If you submit the FAFSA form, you’ll see a confirmation page that displays your completion date, data release number, and next steps. You’ll also see your estimated Student Aid Index, estimated Federal Pell Grant eligibility, and information about other federal student aid for which you may be eligible. This confirmation page is emailed automatically to you for your records.

Note: The Student Aid Index on the confirmation page is only an estimate. The official Student Aid Index will appear on the FAFSA Submission Summary.

Turning in Submission for Graduation Requirements

Please print (or you can screenshot and email) your confirmation page and turn it in to Mrs. Weikert. For your graduation documentation, the following is needed: 

• Name

• Completion Date

• Data Release Number

What Not To Expect From the FAFSA Submission Summary

The FAFSA Submission Summary won’t tell you how much financial aid you’ll get. Also, if you provided consent and approval to obtain your federal tax information from the IRS, the FAFSA Submission Summary won’t show the details of your (or parent) income and tax information.

Provide Required Verification

You might see a note on your FAFSA Submission Summary saying you’ve been selected for verification; or your school might contact you to inform you that you’ve been selected. Verification is the process your school uses to confirm that the data reported on your FAFSA form is accurate. If you’re selected for verification, your school will request additional documentation that supports the information you reported.

Don’t assume you’re being accused of doing anything wrong. Some people are selected for verification at random; and some schools verify all students' FAFSA forms. All you need to do is provide the documentation your school asks for—and be sure to do so by the school’s deadline, or you won’t be able to get federal student aid.

In most cases, you won't have to verify income and tax information. However, if you are selected for verification, the school may ask you to submit a tax transcript or other documentation to confirm the information you reported.

Making Changes After You Submit

Can I make changes to my FAFSA® submission?

Yes. Once it’s been processed, you can make changes to correct or update the information on your FAFSA form.

You should make a correction in the following situations:

• You made a mistake in what you reported on your form.

• Your form is in “Action Required” status, and you need to make a required correction such as adding a missing signature or providing consent and approval.

• You want to add or remove schools from your form.

Most of the questions on the FAFSA form want to know your situation as of the day you signed and submitted your form. However, you may need to update information if there’s a significant change in your or your family’s financial or personal circumstances.

Correcting Your Form

After your form has been processed, you can correct your FAFSA form online or on paper.

• Log in to your StudentAid.gov account to make changes online. If you’re a dependent student and you change information about your parent(s), they must re-sign your FAFSA form electronically using their own StudentAid.gov account.

• If you received a paper FAFSA Submission Summary by mail, you can make your changes, sign it, and send it to the address listed on your FAFSA Submission Summary.

You can also contact the college or career/trade school you plan to attend and ask them to make the changes.

Note: Federal tax information transferred directly from the IRS cannot be changed on your online FAFSA form. If you filed an IRS Form 1040-X amended return, contact your college’s or career school’s financial aid office to discuss whether it would be appropriate for the school to adjust the information on your FAFSA form.

If FAFSA® Form Is Missing a Contributor’s Consent and Approval

If your FAFSA form is missing a contributor’s consent and approval, your contributor must do the following:

1. Log in and go to their account Dashboard.

2. Select the FAFSA form that indicates “Action Required” under the “My Activity” section.

3. Select “Approve.”

4. Provide their consent and approval.

5. Navigate through the form.

6. Sign and submit their section of the form.

If Your FAFSA® Form Is Missing One or More Required Signatures

All required contributors (you, your parent[s], your spouse) must provide a signature on your FAFSA form. If your form is missing one or more required signatures, it isn’t complete, and you won’t be eligible for federal student aid.

Once your form is processed, you and your contributor(s) can follow these steps to add a missing signature:

1. Log in and select the FAFSA submission from the “My Activity” section of your account Dashboard.

2. Under “FAFSA® Form Processed,” select “Provide Signature.”

3. On the “Correct Your FAFSA® Form” page, select “Provide Signature.”

4. On the “Review Changes” page, select “Continue.” Note: If a missing signature is your only error, you’ll be taken directly to this page. If your section of the form has other errors, you’ll be taken to the first page that needs additional information and will reach the “Review Changes” page once you’ve fixed all issues.

5. On the “Signature” page, select “Sign and Submit.”

Add or Delete a School

If you want to make your FAFSA information available to an additional school after filing the FAFSA form, you may add that school’s Federal School Code.

Once your FAFSA form is processed, you can add or delete a school by doing the following steps:

1. Log in and go to your account Dashboard.

2. Select the submitted FAFSA form.

3. Select the processed FAFSA submission in the “My Activity” section.

4. Select the “Add or Remove Schools” button.

5. Search for the school by entering either the school code or the state, city, and/or school name and then select “Search.”

6. Select the school from the search results. The school’s Federal School Code will appear in the form.

7. Submit the update.

Note: No more than 20 schools may be listed on your FAFSA form at one time. (The FAFSA PDF has space for only 10 schools, while the online FAFSA form allows 20 to be listed.) If there are 20 schools on your FAFSA form, any new school codes that are added will replace one or more of the school codes already listed. Any school removed from the list won’t have automatic access to new FAFSA information you provided after you removed that school. However, the school will still have the data you submitted when you listed that school on the FAFSA form.

Change Your Answer to the “Unsubsidized Loan Only” Question

Dependent students have the option to indicate that their parents are unwilling to provide their information and therefore want to apply for only a Direct Unsubsidized Loan. However, if a dependent student doesn’t provide parent information, their eligibility for other types of federal student aid can’t be calculated. This means they won’t be eligible for a Federal Pell Grant, Federal Work-Study, or a Direct Subsidized Loan.

If you selected to apply for only a Direct Unsubsidized Loan by mistake, follow these steps to change your answer to this question and invite your parent(s) to your form:

1. Log in and select your FAFSA submission from the “My Activity” section of your account Dashboard.

2. Select “Start Your Correction” from under the “Student Actions Needed” section.

3. Select “Continue” on the “Correct Your FAFSA® Form” page.

4. Select “Start Student Section” on the “Error Summary” page.

5. Navigate through the Personal Circumstances section until you reach the “Your Dependency Status” page. You’ll see that “Yes” is selected as the answer to the “Direct Unsubsidized Loan Only” question.

6. Change your answer to the “Direct Unsubsidized Loan Only” question to “No.” Then, select “Continue” to navigate through the rest of the form and invite your parent(s).

7. When you reach the “Review Changes” page, confirm that your answer to the “Direct Unsubsidized Loan Only” question has been changed to “No.” Then, select “Continue” to sign and submit your section of the correction.

8. Review the next steps included on the “Section Complete” page. To complete your form, your parent(s) must log in, complete their section, provide their consent and approval and signature, and submit the correction.

If You Filed a FAFSA® Form Using an Incorrect Social Security Number (SSN)

If you filed a FAFSA form using an incorrect SSN, do the following:

1. Log in and update your information in your Account Settings.

2. Once the Social Security Administration (SSA) verifies your account status, update the information on your FAFSA form by selecting “Make a Correction.”

3. Once the information on your FAFSA form has been updated, navigate through the rest of the form.

4. Sign and submit the form.

If you believe that the SSN you reported is correct, then follow the instructions for updating the SSA and the Federal Student Aid Information Center (FSAIC):

1. Contact the SSA by calling 1-800-772-1213 or by visiting ssa.gov to either confirm your SSN or request that they update their records.

2. Once SSA resolves the issue, contact the FSAIC at 1-800-433-3243.

3. Ask the FSAIC to manually sync their data with the SSA. You’ll be notified by email once a match is confirmed.

4. Reach out to your college’s or career school’s financial aid office to inform them of the update.

Updating Information

Most of the information on your FAFSA form can’t be updated because it must be accurate as of the day you originally signed and submitted your form. For example, if you spent some of your savings after filing the FAFSA form, you can’t update your information to show a change in that amount.

You should speak to the financial aid office at the college or career/trade school you plan to attend if there will be a significant change in your or your parent’s income for the present year or if your family has other circumstances that cannot be reported on the FAFSA form. Additionally, if your personal circumstances change and impact your dependency status after you submit your FAFSA form, contact your school’s financial aid office to ask if they have a policy that allows you to update your answers to the personal circumstance questions. The financial aid staff will tell you what to do.

Helpful Resources

Below are some resources to help you and your students navigate the FAFSA process:

• Where do I begin? - You must fill out the form for the year that you will be in college

• How do I apply for the FAFSA?

• Top 10 FAFSA Myths

• 14 Most Common FAFSA® Errors

• FAFSA Help Center