WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senator Chris Coons and the Christina School District hosted a free workshop on Saturday to help students and their families fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The event, which was held at Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington, was part of the Senator’s ongoing effort to help make college more accessible to more Delaware students.
“Applying for federal student aid is an important first step in helping many students secure the money they need to pay for college,” Senator Coons said. “I believe that it’s important we do whatever we can to help each and every student who wants a college education to get one, so this workshop was designed to help students and their families overcome one of the highest barriers to a college education: paying for it. I hope that today’s workshop will help these promising young Delawareans be successful in getting a degree.”
Volunteers from JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and TD Bank helped more than a dozen young Delawareans fill out their FAFSA forms. The volunteers were provided by $tand by Me, the Delaware Financial Empowerment Partnership, a joint project of the State of Delaware and the United Way of Delaware.
Since tax information was needed to complete the FAFSA, there was also help for individuals who wanted to file their taxes for free (income had to be under $57,000 for 2011) using a web-based self-help tax program. Tax experts were on-site to answer Delawareans’ questions.
Senator Coons has also been working in Washington to make college more accessible, recently introducing bipartisan legislation to help increase the number of low-income students able to access and complete a college education. The American Dream Accounts Act of 2012, which is cosponsored by Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would authorize the Department of Education to award three-year competitive grants to support innovative and comprehensive partnerships that support low-income students in preparation for a college education U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah (D-PA-2) introduced a companion to Senator Coons’ American Dream Accounts Act of 2012 in the House.
To learn more about the FAFSA and to submit a free application, Delawareans should go to: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov
The American Dream Accounts Act of 2012 legislation can be downloaded here as a PDF: http://coons.senate.gov/media/2012-03-15-dream-accounts-legislation.pdf
A four-page backgrounder on the American Dream Accounts Act can be downloaded as a PDF here:http://coons.senate.gov/media/2012-03-15-dream-accounts-backgrounder.pdf