If you’re a transfer UC Davis student looking for financial aid next year to help with your off-campus Davis apartment and other expenses, there’s good news. You may be able to apply for aid as early as October. According to Lifehacker, The Latest FAFSA Changes Will Make It Easier to Apply for Financial Aid:
As The New York Times explains, under the current rules, students can’t file for FAFSA (which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid), until January of the year they’re planning to go to college. And, because you need tax information to apply for the FAFSA, most everyone applies after April anyway.
Financial aid eligibility is a big factor for a lot of students deciding where to go to college. Ideally, you want to know what your eligibility looks like before you actually apply (those application fees can be expensive). Thankfully, now you can. As of next fall, students can file their FAFSA as early as October, not January, and they can use info from that year’s tax return. For example, if you’re planning to start college in September of 2017, you can file in October 2016, and you can use your 2015 tax return that you filed earlier that year.