
A. No, start your child's college financial aid application as soon as you enter the new year!
The reason is simple:
- Many colleges have student financial aid deadlines in January or February
- Many states (such as Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc.) use the First-come First-serve policy to determine financial aids
- Some states have a "preferred deadline" for financial aids.
You can't afford waiting till your tax is done then applying for college financial aid.
After you getting the PIN from pin.ed.gov, you can use FAFSA.ed.gov to do financial aid, just check "will file" tax in the FAFSA application. You can use last year's tax numbers to estimate this year's taxable income, and update it after you are actually done with this year's tax.