Your FAFSA PIN

Your FAFSA PIN enables you to get convenient access to information about your student lending from the federal government at any time. More and more federal agencies have been adopting the use of personal identification numbers for their websites over the years, even including the IRS. The system is a bit involved, however, and your PIN is definitely something that you do not want to lose. If you do, you’ll find it very hard to get it back and you’ll have to reapply for a new one, in most cases.

How Your FAFSA PIN Works

If you go to the site PIN.Ed.Gov, you’ll see everything you need to get going with a FAFSA PIN number. You’ll also be issued one when you apply for federal student aid. This FAFSA PIN is the way that you get into the website to check your student loan status and, in the future, it will allow you to automatically apply for forbearances and other financial products that allow you to get by when times are tough. For students, however, your FAFSA PIN is primarily a tool to check the status of your funding and to make sure that you get everything you need filed to the government in time for the next semester.

Your FAFSA PIN and the FAFSA Deadline

For every semester that you go to college, there is a deadline by which you have to file your FAFSA paperwork to get funding by the time school starts up. By using your FAFSA PIN, you can log into your account and fill out all of the necessary paperwork to get your financial aid requests processed in a timely manner. The idea behind having the PIN system is to streamline the experience of using federal financial aid resources for students and for the government itself. Because students can simply log into an account that already has all of the applicable information, update information instantly if needed and resubmit their application for student aid, the processes faster, more efficient and easier for everybody involved. This goes a long way toward helping students make sure they make the FAFSA deadline.

After you do file all of your information, you can use your FAFSA PIN to access your SAR and see how much financial aid you can expect to receive. Your student aid report is also e-mailed to you the next business day after you apply. Having it available by using your FAFSA PIN, however, makes it easy for you to access it no matter where you are, whether you can get to your e-mail at that point are not.

Safety

Remember that your FAFSA PIN gives you access to information that would be dangerous to have other people get ahold of. Your Social Security number, address, phone number and other contact information are all accessible by using this number. You have to make absolutely certain that you do not give this number to anybody. If you use a mobile device or a laptop computer, make sure that your FAFSA PIN is not stored anywhere on the device. It’s easy to lose track of these devices or to have them stolen and, if that should happen, somebody could login to a federal aid site with the saved credentials and get a hold of all of your information.

If you do lose your FAFSA PIN, you’ll have to reestablish a new one by using the federal PIN site. This can be a lengthy process, so make sure that you hold onto your FAFSA PIN in a safe place, you’ll find it to be an invaluable tool in keeping track of your status and what types of federal aid that you qualify for.