Gazette-Mail: Students can apply for PROMISE, other financial aid sooner
The application which determines a student’s eligibility for financial aid to go to college and several of the state’s scholarships will be available sooner this year.
Instead of waiting until of Jan. 1, 2017, to start the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is a required application that determines a student’s eligibility for financial aid, students will be able to start the application on Oct. 1 this year.
Applications for three West Virginia scholarships (the Promise Scholarship; the Engineering, Science and Technology Scholarship; and the Underwood-Smith Teacher Scholarship) also will become available at the beginning of October.
“We’re hoping this increases the number of students applying for FAFSA, because it gives us more time to get out into these schools to help people fill out the FAFSA and answer questions,” said Brian Weingart, the Higher Education Policy Commission’s senior director for financial aid.