On July 19 at the White House “Beating the Odds” Summit, First Lady Michelle Obama called for high school and college‑age students to sign up with Up Next, which sends text‑based messages about topics like applying for college, filling out the FAFSA and paying back student loans after graduation.

Students can sign up by texting “COLLEGE” to 44044, after which they will answer a series of short, onboarding questions to gather their information and tailor ongoing content for them. To learn more about this engaging initiative and how your students can sign up, please click here.

Last September, President Obama announced two major changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) process. First, the President announced a change to the date when students and families can begin to submit a FAFSA. Beginning with the 2017-2018 financial aid application cycle, the FAFSA will be available on October 1st of the year prior to the upcoming award year. Thus, 2017-2018 FAFSA filing will begin on October 1, 2016. By having the FAFSA available earlier the financial aid process will generally coincide with the college admissions application and decision cycle, hopefully allowing schools and states to provide financial aid information sooner to students and families.

Second, the President announced a change to which tax year's information will be collected on the FAFSA. Currently, when completing a FAFSA, applicants provide income information from the prior tax year (e.g., 2015 income information for the upcoming 2016‑2017 FAFSA). Beginning with the 2017‑2018, FAFSA income information from one tax year earlier the so called “prior‑prior‑year” will be collected. This means that the 2017‑2018 FAFSA will collect tax year 2015 income information and not 2016 information. As a result of this change most students will be able to complete their FAFSAs using information from an already completed tax return. This in turn, will provide most of them with the ability to electronically transfer their income tax return information from the IRS into the FAFSA using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT).

As always, families are welcome to come to Concord for assistance in filing the FAFSA. A plan is underway to also host FAFSA filing workshops at various colleges and universities across the state of New Hampshire over the next few months. Stay tuned for more details!

For more information about the FAFSA changes and to view a Financial Aid Toolkit, please click here. Later this month, we will be mailing your office copies of this poster to encourage your seniors to file their 2017‑2018 FAFSA.

Each year, school counselors from across the state utilize our free curriculum to help your students prepare for college admissions! Many of your favorite CCP classroom presentations, including a new College Overview for Seniors program, are now available for download and delivery at your convenience by clicking here! PowerPoint presentations, detailed lesson plans and applicable handouts are provided to guide you.

The anticipated SAT administration dates for the next three years have recently been published to help you and your students as they plan for college. The April 2017 administration is when all New Hampshire high school juniors will take the test as part of the Common Core assessment.

Beginning in the 2017‑2018 school year, the College Board will offer an August SAT administration and will end the January administration in the U.S. This shift will provide students with earlier opportunities to take the SAT before submitting college applications, and more time to focus on course work, school activities, and college applications in the fall of their senior year. The last January administration of the SAT in the U.S. will be in January 2017.