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Renew FAFSA Online Only

Students renew FAFSA by using the online form now. Renewals are no longer printed and mailed to you. If you print a FAFSA form and mail it in, you will need to fill out the entire application again.

You will need to renew every year for all federal school loans, education grants or scholarships.

In 2006, only 9,000 of 11 million eligible students mailed back the special renewal form to the U.S. Department of Education.

So that ended that.

To renew FAFSA, you can fill out a pre-filled form which has your all your info from the previous year (that is still applicable).

Renewal notices are only emailed to those who qualify for reminders- that would be those students who gave email addresses on their 2011-2012 FAFSA.

If you're eligible to renew, but you do not have a valid (or deliverable) email address, you will be sent a renewal reminder letter (as long as you have a deliverable postal address).

If you haven't filed the 2011-2012 form, but you do so after January 10, 2012, or if you make FAFSA corrections after that date, you will be eligible for the "renew FAFSA" form, but you will not get the reminder to do so.

You can do a renewal at the FAFSA website even if you are not notified. Just go to FAFSA and select the "Fill Out Your FAFSA" option and choose the correct year. You will need:

the student's social security number

the student's last name, first name and date of birth

The student's FAFSA PIN

to create a password solely for this renewal application

If there is no activity on the form for thirty minutes, you will time out and not be able to retrieve your information without the password you created. This password is not your FAFSA PIN .

The good news is that doing the renewal is easier than doing the original, because most of the information you filled out the year before is already on there.

If you are a glutton for punishment and prefer to mail your info in, you will have to download a printable FAFSA application (the original) and fill it out all over again and send it in. (But make sure you check the FAFSA school codes to see if yours has changed.)

The main reason that the government requires you to file this form every year is that situations change, income goes up and down, and your student financial aid changes accordingly. It also discourages families from using deferred compensation for FAFSA as a way to avoid showing their true income.

The Trickiest Part of FAFSA Renewal Is...

...having both dependent students and their parents sign the form when the student is away at college and the parents are home. The simplest solution is for one of them to tell the other their PIN.

Although this is not very security-minded, the idea of trusting the U.S. Department of Education to add a written signature page to an electronic file-only document is not appealing, either.

Also, the quicker you can file, the better. If you do not file before the school's deadline, you might lose your institutional grant or scholarship. Make sure to check your state's FAFSA deadline, and file the FAFSA online application .

Both the 2011-2012 and the 2012-2013 FAFSA application have fewer questions and will take less of your time than any of the previous ones.

The only question renewing students face this year that new students are not also required to answer, is the drug conviction question. This only disqualifies students who were using financial aid at the time of the conviction.

Here's some useful pages for you to see:

Cheap college textbooks

federal student loans

Best private loan lender