Free Application for Federal Student Aid, Washington Application for State Financial Aid, and Graduate Strong are all resources students can use to help when it comes to tuition, college, school loans, and more. Each is different in their own way and there are multiple kinds of federal financial aid in general.

“It’s sort of a universal application that is available to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, and folks who have a green card and that application gets you access to federal financial aid,” said Anna Fulford, Central Kitsap High School’s on-campus FAFSA counselor.  

College tuition and debt are both factors to keep an eye out when applying for college. FAFSA may help take stress off of students who may be worrying about that.

“When you fill out the FAFSA you can send it to any college you’re interested in going to and then the college will decide how much financial aid they can give you. You can send it to up to ten colleges,” said Fulford.

There are a few different statuses that contribute to what makes someone eligible for FAFSA. The main requirements being that you must be a U.S. citizen, have a green card, or people who are from American Samoa, and refugees. 

“There’s a bunch of different immigration and citizenship statuses that allow you to use FAFSA. If you aren’t covered by one of those U.S citizenship or immigration stat

uses that allows you to use FAFSA, in other words if you’re an undocumented student, you can use WASFA instead,” said Fulford. 

WASFA, short for Washington Application for State Financial Aid and is connected to FAFSA however unlike FAFSA, WASFA only handles state financial aid. 

“It’s available to anyone who’s been a resident of Washington for at least a year at the time that they’re going to start school. The choice that people have in Washington is do the FAFSA which is the federal aid, if you do the FAFSA, then you’re eligible for federal and whatever state aid that applies to you,” said Chris Oizer, an outreach specialist for WASFA and who works at Olympic College while occasionally coming to Central Kitsap High School to help students with federal aid.

Olympic College is also a resource for students of Central Kitsap High School, whether or not you decide to go to Olympic College or Washington State University. 

“It’s really important to know that Olympic College is willing to help students even if they’re not coming to Olympic, so if you have any seniors or people that have already graduated, maybe their family members… Come to us at Olympic College, we’re happy to help,” said Oizer. 

To find out more information about WASFA, their website is a great resource and the main factor needed to apply for WASFA. They’re also connected to another organization called KIAC.  

“The Kitsap immigrant assistance center, KIAC. They do legal and other services for immigrants in our community, so we’ve been working with them to make sure information about college and financial aid is specific to immigrant and undocumented students is in translation for people and that they have access to it as well,” said Promise Partner via email , a Future Bound facilitator who also comes to Central Kitsap High School to help students applying for financial aid. She can be reached via email or her work number, 206-771-0029.

They do events and presentations which help to educate parents and students about how to understand financial aid, how to prepare for enrollment, and multiple other things. Each focuses on different subjects all relating to struggles one might find when applying for financial aid.

There are no requirements for applying to Graduate Strong and it is eligible for anyone who is interested. There is another resource that does require an application process and that is a youth leadership team.

“We have what’s called the Future Bound youth leadership team and that’s a group of youth that applied and were selected to be an advisory committee for our future bound activities,” said Partner. 

Future Bound is also a great resource for graduation help and college assistance.

“That’s supporting young people to know what pathways they have after graduation and to be able to transition into training or college or a post secondary credential or employment successfully and have all the resources and information they need to do that,” said Partner.

FAFSA, WASFA, and Future Bound are all great resources for students trying to apply for financial aid or are struggling with future college planning and all it takes is a quick email.