Have you filed your FAFSA? Financial Aid Filing Deadline Looming.

For those of you that have college bound kids and were thinking about financial aid or trying to get grants to help with college expenses you might want to read the following from SFGATE.com. Good luck with those applications, it sounds like they are making them easier now. College-bound students in California have just one more week to file their federal financial aid application to be considered for some important types of state and university aid for the 2010-11 school year. Many students will find it easier to fill out the online version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid this year thanks to the addition of skip logic, which skips questions that are deemed irrelevant based on answers to previous questions. Students must fill out this application, known as the FAFSA, to be eligible for federal aid such as Pell grants, work study and guaranteed loans. Many states and schools use the same application to dole out their own financial aid. California residents who will attend a public or private college in California and want to be considered for a first-time Cal Grant must file the application by March 2. These grants go to undergraduate students from low- and some middle-income families. They cover systemwide fees at public universities (up to $4,026 at California State University and $10,302 at UC campuses). Students attending a private university can get up to $9,708 toward tuition. Some students can get an additional $1,551 for books and living expenses. Students must fall below certain income and asset ceilings that vary by family size and type of grant. A dependent student from a family of four with up to $80,200 in income and less than $62,000 in assets might get at least a partial grant. To get a Cal Grant, students also must verify by March 2 that they have a certain minimum grade point average. Many high schools are automatically verifying GPAs for all graduating seniors, but students should check. Students who attend a Cash for College workshop before March 2 and fill out an application and a survey will be entered in a drawing to win an additional scholarship worth $1,000. For details and to find a workshop near you, go to calgrants.org and click on Cash for College. Many universities also encourage or require students to fill out the form by March 2 (earlier in some cases) to be considered for institutional aid. "We always say, file by March 2 to be sure to get the maximum package," says Cheryl Resh, financial aid director at UC Berkeley. Despite federal efforts to simplify the application, it can still be challenging, even for financial aid experts such as Diana Fuentes-Michel, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, which administers Cal Grants. "It's a little easier this year, but it's still daunting," says Fuentes-Michel, who recently helped her 17-year-old daughter fill out the form. Thanks to skip logic, many students will have to answer fewer questions this year, but some colleges worry they won't get all the information they need. For example, a student whose family has less than $50,000 in adjusted gross income and is eligible to file a 1040A or 1040EZ tax return is no longer required to disclose assets on the federal form. However, without that information, financial aid offices don't know whether the student exceeds the asset limit for a Cal Grant, says Yvonne Gutierrez-Sandoval, associate director of financial aid at Pitzer College and president of the California Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Fuentes-Michel says she is taking this and similar questions to the student aid commission. "I hope to get an answer to campuses in writing in the next five to six weeks," she says. David Levy, director of financial aid at Scripps College, says he's getting a lot of questions this year because the worksheet that students fill out before tackling the application was also simplified. The new worksheet, he says, doesn't prepare students for all the questions they will encounter, and as a result, it's taking some families longer to fill it out. Another question he's getting more often is how to explain special economic circumstances. To get aid for 2010-11, students use information from their family's 2009 tax return. That information might look too rosy if a parent recently lost a job, but there's no way to explain it on the form. Levy encourages these students to contact the financial aid offices at schools where they have applied and explain the situation, even before they have been admitted, so "colleges can make a more informed decision" when offering aid. "We want to accept the family in their current financial state," he says, but his office will ask for verification such as termination letters or confirmation of unemployment benefits. Net Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail Kathleen Pender at kpender@sfchronicle.com.